“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday.

The US military’s Africa Command (Africom) said the strike was carried out in Sokoto state in coordination with Nigerian authorities and killed multiple Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

The strike comes after Trump in late October began warning that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and threatened to militarily intervene in the West African country over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.

Reuters reported on Monday the US had been conducting intelligence-gathering flights over large parts of Nigeria since late November.

‘More to come’

Nigeria’s foreign ministry said the strikes were carried out as part of ongoing security cooperation with the United States, involving intelligence sharing and strategic coordination to target militant groups.

“This has led to precision hits on terrorist targets in Nigeria by air strikes in the North West,” the ministry said in a post on X.

A video posted by the Pentagon showed at least one projectile launched from a warship. A US defence official said the strike targeted multiple militants at known Islamic State camps.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thanked the Nigerian government on X for its support and cooperation and added: “More to come…”

Nigerians push back on Trump’s military threat over Christian killings

Nigeria’s government has said armed groups target both Muslims and Christians, and US claims that Christians face persecution do not represent the complex security situation and ignore efforts to safeguard religious freedom. But it has agreed to work with the US to bolster its forces against militant groups.

The country’s population is split between Muslims living primarily in the north and Christians in the south.

Police said earlier on Thursday a suspected suicide bomber killed at least five people and injured 35 others at a mosque in Nigeria’s northeast, another region troubled by Islamist insurgents.

Police suspect suicide bomber behind Nigeria’s deadly mosque blast 

In a Christmas message posted on X earlier, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu called for peace in his country, “especially between individuals of differing religious beliefs”.

He also said: “I stand committed to doing everything within my power to enshrine religious freedom in Nigeria and to protect Christians, Muslims, and all Nigerians from violence.”

The US military last week launched separate large-scale strikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria, after Trump vowed to hit back in the wake of a suspected Islamic State attack on US personnel in the country.

(with newswires)

“The ball is now in France’s court,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday.

“There were indeed relevant contacts between us and the French side. Indeed, a proposal was made to the French regarding Vinatier,” he said, without providing details.

The French foreign ministry has declined to comment.

The surprise public overture comes as both Russia and France have expressed interest in possible talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron.

Vinatier, who works for a Swiss conflict mediation group, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2024 for failing to register as a “foreign agent”, for which he apologised. He is now facing additional charges of gathering data about Russia’s military activities.

Vinatier has rejected the accusations of spying, and his family say he is a victim of tensions between Russia and France over the war in Ukraine.

French presidency welcomes Putin’s readiness to speak with Macron

Arbitrary detention

France has said Vinatier was arbitrarily detained and has called for his release. French President Emmanuel Macron has denied that Vinatier worked for the French state, and has described his arrest as part of a misinformation campaign by Moscow.

After a French journalist asked Putin about Vinatier during an end-of-year televised press conference last week, Putin said he would look into the case.

“I don’t know anything about this case. This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Putin said. “But I promise you I’ll definitely find out what it is. And if there’s even the slightest chance of resolving this matter favourably, if Russian law allows it, we’ll make every effort.”

The Kremlin said at the weekend that Putin was “ready” to engage in dialogue with Macron.

Vinatier is one of several Westerners to have been arrested after Putin launched an all-out offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.

Several United States citizens have been imprisoned and then released in exchanges brokered by both US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden.

Western countries have long accused Russia of arresting their citizens on baseless charges, seeking to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of alleged Russian spies and cyber criminals jailed in Europe and the US.

(with Reuters)

Following an opening day victory over Comoros, the hosts can advance to the knockout stages of the 2025 tournament with a win in front of fervent partisans.

But Regragui said passage to the second phase would not be straightforward.

“Mali will show more personality, more technical control,” added the 50-year-old former Morocco international.

“There will be more space for us but there will also be moments when we will suffer.”

Morocco go into the tie boasting a 19-match winning streak dating back to March 2024.

‘Too much caution’

The top-rated African team in the Fifa world rankings, Morocco entered the tournament as one of the hot favourites for what would be the country’s second trophy since the inception of the Cup of Nations in 1957.

“At times we lacked runs into space and presence in the box,” said Regragui about the game against Comoros. “There was perhaps too much caution.”

After a goalless first-half, Brahim Diaz opened his Cup of Nations account and Ayoub El Kaabi’s strike with a bicycle kick doubled the advantage.

“Mali reminds me of Morocco in the past,” added Regragui who played in the defeat to Tunisia in the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations final.

“There is a lot of talent, but sometimes difficulty managing emotions during a game. The day they get that breakthrough, they will be very dangerous.”

Egypt coach Hassan backs Salah to shine at Cup of Nations despite Liverpool woes

Friday’s line-up

Before the Group A crunch, Zambia, who claimed a surprise 1-1 draw with Mali on Monday, face Comoros in Casablanca.

The day’s action will kick off with the Group B match between Angola and Zimbabwe.

The outfits will be seeking to relaunch their campaigns following respective opening day defeats to South Africa and Egypt.

Egypt skipper Mohamed Salah scored in second-half stoppage-time to give his side a 2-1 victory in Agadir on Monday.

Angola also went down to a late strike. Defeat for either team in Marrakesh could jeopardise their chances of progress to the last-16 though both squads can take heart from Cote d’Ivoire’s experiences at the last competition.

The Ivorians lost two of their pool matches but managed to qualify for the knockout stages as one of the four best third-placed teams. They eventually claimed the crown.

Morocco boss Regragui includes injured PSG star Hakimi in Cup of Nations squad

Egypt and South Africa will be eyeing a berth in the second phase when they clash in the afternoon in Agadir.

South Africa enter the encounter on the back of a 27-match unbeaten run. 

“It’s a nice record, but it’s nothing more than that,” said South Africa boss Hugo Broos.

“I don’t pay any particular attention to it. We just want to win every game, that’s our philosophy and we try to demonstrate that on the pitch.”

Broos, who steered the Cameroon squad to the trophy at the 2017 Cup of Nations, added: “If you ask me to choose between staying unbeaten or winning the Cup of Nations, I think you can already guess my answer. “

For more than 10 years, Lucia has been the closest thing to a doctor many here have seen.

She is a community health worker, or CHW – part of a vast but often overlooked network of women who quietly sustain Kenya’s rural healthcare system.

Every day before sunrise, she walks up to 20 kilometres on dusty paths and rocky hills to visit people in their homes – checking on pregnant mothers, tending to sick children and referring emergency cases to distant health centres.

Women in rural Kenya urged to shun old ways and use antiseptic on umbilical cord

In places where clinics are scarce and roads barely exist, CHWs like Lucia are a lifeline. People know her, and they trust her. Some owe their lives to her.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Lucia says. “I’m not paid much, but I do it because these are my people. They have no one else to rely on.”

A life-changing gift

Lucia used to spend hours walking between homes, which meant fewer visits and longer days. Then she received a gift that changed everything: a bicycle.

It was given to her by World Bicycle Relief, a global charity working to empower remote communities through mobility. It has distributed more than 24,000 bicycles across Kenya to support health workers, schoolchildren and displaced individuals.

With her new bike, the time Lucia once spent trekking between appointments could now be spent reaching more patients, and getting to them faster.

“This bike is a lifesaver,” she says. “Before, I could visit maybe five homes a day. Now I can reach 15, sometimes 20. Every minute counts.”

Goats for healthcare: an initiative for pastoralists in Kenya

Esther Mwangi, a county health official, knows how crucial such interventions are. “People often underestimate how transformative a bicycle can be, especially in developing regions where the infrastructure supports it,” she said.

“A good quality bicycle means a health worker can serve more patients, and it requires almost no maintenance,” Maureen Kolenyo, regional director of World Bicycle Relief in  East Africa, told RFI.

Government support in Kenya is often lacking, leaving organisations such as hers to step in and fill the gaps.

“We’re working closely with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to identify high-need areas. The pressing question now is: who will invest, and help scale up the solution?” Kolenyo added.

‘I carry my people’

Lucia’s relationship with her community is intimate, born of countless hours spent listening, checking and comforting.

“We can always count on her. She saved my baby,” said Nthenya, a mother of four.

An elderly man who receives weekly check-ups calls her “more reliable than the dispensary”, while one young woman in her final trimester of pregnancy said she sees Lucia as “a second mother”.

At the end of another long day, she mounts her bicycle and begins the steep, uneven ride home. The light is fading and the road is rough, but she is still smiling.

“Before, my legs would be shaking by now,” she says. “But this bicycle – it’s like my partner. It carries me, and I carry my people.”

In his first Christmas sermon since succeeding Pope Francis in May, Leo said the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God had “pitched his fragile tent” among the people of the world.

“How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?” he asked the thousands of worshipers gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Leo has addressed the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza several times recently and told journalists last month that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians must include a Palestinian state.

The new pope has a quieter, more diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons, but he chose to be more direct about conflicts during his first Christmas mass.

He spoke of the plight of the homeless across the globe and the destruction caused by war more generally.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenceless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” said the pope.

“Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

In a later blessing, the pope lamented the situation for migrants and refugees who “traverse the American continent” – care for immigrants has been a key issue since he became pope.

While in the past Leo has criticised US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, he did not mention Trump.

In a Christmas Eve sermon on Wednesday, he said refusing to help the poor and strangers was tantamount to rejecting God himself.

During his Urbi et orbi (to the city and the world) benediction – traditionally given by the pope at Christmas and Easter addressing global conflicts – Leo called for an end to all global wars.

Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he lamented conflicts, political, social or military, in Ukraine, Sudan, Mali, Myanmar, and Thailand and Cambodia, among others.

Leo said people in Ukraine, where Russian troops are threatening cities critical to the country’s eastern defences, have been “tormented” by violence.

“May the clamour of weapons cease, and may the parties involved, with the support and commitment of the international community, find the courage to engage in sincere, direct and respectful dialogue,” he said.

Leo will also hold another mass on Christmas Day, renewing a tradition from the times of late Pope John Paul II.

(with Reuters)

On 30 April 1975, the fall of Saigon – the capital of Southern Vietnam – to the communist-controlled North brought an end to the Vietnam War. A crushing defeat for the United States, it sealed the country’s reunification with a regime that remains in power to this day.

In the late 1970s, many Vietnamese people fled the new republic by sea. Around 120,000 of these so-called “boat people” found refuge in France. There are now an estimated 400,000 people either born in Vietnam or with Vietnamese heritage living in the country.

A large number settled in the town of Bussy-Saint-Georges, east of Paris, where French-Vietnamese people from three generations spoke to RFI.

“April 30, 1975 is a day I will never forget,” says Anh Linh Tran, a former officer in the South Vietnamese army, now in his 70s. Faced with dwindling food and ammunition, he and the 100 men under his command had no choice but to surrender.

“We were very sad, but there was nothing else we could do,” he said. He spent the next three years in prison. 

Vietnam marks 70th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu victory over France

Telling ‘almost’ everything

In 1979, he fled Vietnam by boat, carrying the trauma of war with him. He reached Malaysia, then France, where his children were born and raised.

“When they were young, I promised to take them to Vietnam, where I was born,” he recalled. “I said it without thinking much, but they remembered and brought it up years later. As the trip approached, I told them I still wasn’t ready. I can’t stand the regime in place.”

He eventually returned to Vietnam in 2019, 40 years after leaving. That visit inspired his book Goodbye Vietnam, written for his children.

“I describe my time in the army, in prison, and our arrival in France. I tell them almost everything,” he said, admitting that some memories are too painful to share.

Children ‘think like the French’

Fifty-something Tran Phung Vu Nguyen was a child when he arrived in France, and has told his own children less than Anh Linh Tran.

“I don’t tell them about the sadness I experienced,” he said. “I don’t want to impose it on them. It’s not their story.”

He was only nine years old when he left Vietnam. “We escaped on a small boat with about 20 people. A pirate vessel sank us.”

They were eventually rescued by Malaysian sailors and brought to shore. Like many others, he ended up in France, and is now president of the local Vietnamese association.

His children know little about his past, but then “they don’t ask much” either.

“They were born in France, they think like the French,” he says. “Vietnam is more of a tourist destination for them. When I take them to Vietnam, it’s mainly for the scenery.”

As for the memories, “we talk about them here, in France, among ourselves.”

Writing their own story

Eighteen-year-old Minh Quan Vo, a law student in Paris who is second-generation French-Vietnamese, confirms this generational shift. He rarely questions his elders – partly out of fear of reopening old wounds, but also through a desire to write his own story.

“I studied geopolitics in high school, so I understand the importance of memory,” he notes. “But I try not to define myself by my past or my origins. I define myself by my actions.”

War, peace and progress: why 2025 will be a standout year of remembrance

While acknowledging that the past is important, he insists it shouldn’t dictate the future. 

Vo says he will nonetheless take part in commemorations on 4 May in Bussy-Saint-Georges, where a monument pays homage to Vietnamese immigrants.

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This article was adapted from the original in French by RFI’s Baptiste Coulon.

Somalia launched voter registration in April for the first time in decades, as the country has been struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and chaos, battling a bloody Islamist insurgency and frequent natural disasters.

The local elections, postponed several times, are a step towards universal suffrage and an end to the complex clan-based indirect voting system that has been in place since 1969.

More than 1,600 candidates are running for 390 local seats in the southeastern Banadir region.

However, the polls are boycotting the election, accusing the federal government of imposing “unilateral election processes”.

Nearly 400,000 people are registered to vote, according to the country’s electoral body.

What next for angry anti-government protesters in Somalia?

Security is a concern.

“We have managed to secure the city,” security minister Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail said in a statement.

Electoral Commission chairman Abdikarin Ahmed Hassan said all movement would be restricted on polling day, with voters being transported to polling stations by bus.

“The whole country will be shut down,” Hassan said. “It is a great moment for the Somali people to see elections for the first [time in] nearly 60 years.”

Somalia backs President Mohamud for second term, hoping for peace and stability

Direct voting was abolished in the country after Siad Barre took power in 1969. Since the fall of his authoritarian government in 1991, the country’s political system has revolved around a clan-based structure.

These local elections, using the one-person, one-vote model, have been postponed three times this year.

Somalia is expected to hold a presidential election in 2026, as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term comes to an end.

That will be an indirect election, with members of parliament electing the head of state.

 (with AFP)

In 2020, journalist Arnaud Wust wrote a children’s story during a Covid-19 lockdown. What began as a family project has since blossomed into Xam Xam – an organisation teaching school children in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire about environmental protection through storytelling and tree planting.

“Everybody told me: ‘You’ve have been working to protect the environment in Senegal for 20 years, so why not make it into a project?’ And that’s how the story began,” Wust told RFI.

Planting knowledge

Named for a Wolof phrase meaning “knowledge sharing”, Xam Xam uses the children’s story Esther and Madiba Save Their Forest to teach children about the environment.

Volunteers spend 10 days at a time visiting schools, sharing the story, giving out books, playing games and planting trees with the children.

The organisation has planted nearly 800 trees since it started. Sana Sabaly from Senegal, who manages a tree nursery and joined the project in 2022, adds practical skills to the storytelling.

“Sana teaches children to make compost and to sow trees, and they leave with a tree seed to plant at home,” Wust said.

Sabaly comes from Tambacounda in eastern Senegal, a region once known for its lush forests but which has now been stripped bare by logging. “We are witnessing a lot of logging, which has killed the greenery in this region that was home to many plant species,” Sabaly explained.

Madagascar and Congo-Brazzaville team up to protect vanishing forests

Taking books to villages

The group focuses on reaching remote communities where children rarely learn about the environment, and books and libraries are often scarce.

In Côte d’Ivoire, the huge cocoa, rubber and palm oil industries drive deforestation, yet many children don’t see the dangers of growing just one type of crop.

“Nobody ever explained to people in remote villages that if trees were cut down massively without replanting them, there would be a vicious cycle of deforestation,” Wust said. “But today, children understand.”

Growing impact

In four years, the organisation has visited more than 100 schools and reached nearly 30,000 children.

“I am always moved because I did not expect such an impact,” Wust said. “We have left a beautiful footprint.

“I once returned to a school and all the children had the story in their schoolbag. They all remembered the story, the characters, the song we sing together. A teacher recently told me that children fight over watering the trees we planted with them.”

Sister Marie-Madeleine Diémé, headmistress of Saint-Charbel-Makhlouf primary school located 20 kilometres east of Mbour, in western Senegal, recounts the children’s joy in taking “responsibility for caring for their tree each day”.

“For the moment, the responsibility for watering the trees falls to the school caretaker,” Marie-Madeleine said.

But water shortages make things tough. Some schools have no water at all. “Some children must bring water from their homes on their way to class in the morning,” Wust explained.

Guadeloupe to fell ‘exotic’ coconut trees to stem coastal erosion

Grassroots funding

Despite growing word of mouth – schools now often get in touch directly – Xam Xam remains a small organisation that relies on donations from individuals, businesses and other supporters.

“Since 2024, donors can deduct it from their taxes since we are a public interest association under the 1901 law. Often, it’s really the funding that drives the project. We would like to do more, but we are still somewhat limited today by funding,” Wust said.

All money raised goes straight to the project, with no overhead costs.

“We don’t receive any royalties. It’s a story that we publish, that we self-finance and that we give away,” said the journalist, who hopes to eventually team up with other countries to keep growing what he calls the tree of hope.

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This story was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Timéo Guillon.

Egypt revived the proposal during an emergency Arab-Islamic summit in Doha, held less than a week after Israeli strikes hit the Qatari capital on 9 September.

Cairo suggested uniting the armed forces of the 22 member states of the Arab League into a single alliance, with pooled resources, rotating leadership, a civilian secretary-general and consultations among members before any use of force.

At the same time, the Gulf Cooperation Council – made up of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar – said it intended to activate a clause in its joint defence agreement signed in 2000, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.

Speaking at the summit on 15 September, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif urged Muslim countries to “form an Islamic NATO” to confront shared challenges. He said the goal should be mutual defence and not to target any specific country.

Soon after, Gulf defence ministers agreed to strengthen intelligence sharing, speed up work on a regional warning system for ballistic missiles and carry out joint military exercises, signalling a desire for a more coordinated response to external threats.

Turkey and Egypt’s joint naval drill signals shifting Eastern Med alliances

History of failed attempts

The idea of a collective defence organisation inspired by NATO is not new in the region.

In 1955, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and the United Kingdom created the Baghdad Pact. The United States joined in 1958 and it was renamed the Central Treaty Organization, or Cento, after Iraq withdrew on 24 March 1959.

Formed during the Cold War, the alliance aimed to contain communism by creating a belt of allied states along the Soviet Union’s southern and south-western borders.

In June 1957, French daily Le Monde described it as building “an effective barrier against a possible Soviet advance” and “a kind of Middle Eastern NATO” that would unify the defence resources of its members.

The pact was widely criticised, including by Arab states such as Syria and Egypt, and eventually collapsed in 1979.

Another alliance still exists.

The Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) was launched in 2015 at Saudi Arabia’s initiative and today brings together 43 states from Bangladesh to Nigeria, as well as Turkey and Morocco. Iran and its Iraqi and Syrian allies were excluded from the outset.

At its creation, Saudi defence minister and deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said the coalition reflected “the vigilance of the Islamic world in fighting [the] disease” of extremist ideology.

A joint statement said it was based on “the duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of terrorist groups and organisations… that spread death and corruption on Earth and aim to to terrorise the innocent”.

The coalition has shown that coordination between Muslim-majority states is possible, but its scope remains limited.

“The IMCTC shows that a pan-Islamic framework can exist and produce coordinated action through information sharing, training and ad hoc initiatives,” Yassine El Yattioui, a researcher at France’s Université Lumière Lyon II, told RFI.

The alliance was built around a narrow objective “focused on counter-terrorism”, he said. “There is no integrated military command, no mutual defence guarantee and no generalised interoperability.”

El Yattioui described it as “a useful precedent, but insufficient to reproduce an Arab NATO or an Islamic NATO”.

Military service: what does conscription look like across Europe?

Persistent divisions

The idea resurfaced again in the summer of 2022, when King Abdullah of Jordan said his country would support a NATO-style alliance among Middle East partners. He said such an alliance would need a “very, very clear mission” to avoid “confusion”.

The project never materialised.

Building a true Arab or Islamic NATO would be extremely difficult, El Yattioui said, because it would require ideological alignment, complimentary economies, compatible military equipment and political unity.

Arab states, though fewer than Muslim-majority countries overall, remain highly diverse and divided. A NATO-style structure would also require states to give up part of their military sovereignty, which for many is closely linked to how power is exercised at home.

Some countries look towards Brics, while others remain aligned with the Western bloc.

Despite these obstacles, looser alliances continue to form as the region adapts to new security challenges, pointing to a broader reshaping of the regional security order.

Europe’s ‘Truman Show’ moment: is it time to walk off Trump’s set?

Doubts about Washington

Since the Israeli strikes on Doha, Arab countries – especially in the Gulf – have increasingly questioned how far they can rely on the United States for protection, even though Gulf states host major US bases and around 40,000 US troops.

“What is the value of the American military umbrella if the United States itself is holding the knife?” the Arab Digest website asked.

Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani struck a sharp tone in his opening speech at the September emergency summit.

“Anyone who persistently and methodically works to assassinate the party they are negotiating with is seeking to sabotage negotiations,” he said. “For them, negotiations are just another part of the war.”

He also said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “dreams of turning the Arab region into an Israeli sphere of influence. That is a dangerous illusion”.

Two weeks later, on 29 September, US President Donald Trump signed an unprecedented defence agreement with Qatar, a day after Netanyahu issued a public apology to Doha over the strikes.

The executive order states that any attack on Qatar would be treated as a threat to US security, even as Washington remains Israel’s biggest ally in the region.

The strikes and doubts about US backing could accelerate Arab efforts to diversify their alliances, analysts warned.

Using force against a third state, especially a close US ally such as Israel, would carry “huge risks of escalation and major diplomatic consequences”, El Yattioui said.

“A military coalition can create pressure, but it will not replace negotiations, political guarantees and solutions that are acceptable to the populations concerned.”

NATO faces new threat as climate helps submarines slip beneath sonar

‘Extended deterrence’

Saudi Arabia has also moved to reinforce its security ties. Riyadh signed a strategic mutual defence agreement with its longtime partner Islamabad on 17 September, committing each country to defend the other in case of aggression.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, thus extends its nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia.

After the deal, Iran said it was interested in joining the bilateral alliance, while Pakistan said it wanted similar agreements with other Arab states.

“This strategic pact is significant,” El Yattioui said. “It shows a search for extended deterrence and a willingness to diversify security guarantees.”

But he said a bilateral agreement could not create a coherent multilateral bloc. Any expansion would depend on shared interests such as common threats, economic and military incentives, domestic political acceptance and reactions from external actors including the United States, India and Iran.

Other arrangements are also emerging, including trilateral agreements between Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Mauritania to create maritime corridors.

The final statement from the Doha summit recalled past Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation resolutions rejecting aggression against member states and reaffirming Arab-Islamic solidarity and collective security.

But the statement stopped short of launching a common military alliance. It remains largely symbolic, signalling unity to the outside world while each state continues to pursue its own alliances and priorities.

Any meaningful shift would need to happen gradually, El Yattioui said.

“The most realistic path is not copying a Western institutional model,” he added, but building cooperation step by step through “functional interdependence” in areas such as intelligence, cyber security and the economy.

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This story was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Anne Bernas.

Ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in June, French and European scientists and policymakers gathered at the Mucem museum in Marseille in May for a summit organised by the Tara Ocean Foundation and the French branch of the Interparliamentary Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.

“Today, we are facing a plastic crisis, which is a major crisis affecting the oceans and the environment in all its dimensions – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” Henri Bourgois-Costa, head of public affairs for the Tara Ocean Foundation, told RFI. 

French schooner Tara charts a course for change ahead of UN oceans summit

Recycling not (the only) solution 

Today, at a global level, 50 percent of plastics are landfilled, 14 percent are recycled, 17 percent incinerated and 19 percent are poorly managed, explained Fabienne Lagarde, an environmental chemist at Le Mans university.

“Recycling is the tree that hides the forest, because the end of life of plastic is also polluting,” she said.

Moreover, 98 percent of plastics today are not biodegradable, and two-thirds are not recyclable, Lagarde pointed out.

France pushes for action as high seas treaty hangs in the balance

“Most of our waste is either buried or incinerated, leading to a major environmental leak that originates primarily from land,” explained Jean-François Ghiglione, a researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the scientific director of the Tara Microplastics mission 2019, whose initial results were published in April. 

“And more than 80 percent of plastics that end up in the sea come from the land,” he added.

The study, which focused on nine major European rivers, showed that 100 percent of these rivers were polluted by microplastics arriving directly from land.

“Microplastics come from the breakdown of large waste. A large piece of waste – through abrasion, friction and UV exposure – breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, almost infinitely,” explained Ghiglione. 

These microplastics measure between 0.025mm and 5mm, and are invisible to the naked eye.

Digital boom makes Marseille a global data hub – but at what cost?

The study also showed that 85 percent of plastics in the sea are in microplastic form. 

These microplastics are also found throughout the food chain, affecting 1.4 million birds and 14,000 mammals every year. Doctors are now investigating the consequences for human health.

“We absolutely must reach a global plastics treaty that reduces the quantity of plastics, because we have scientifically shown that the more plastic is produced, the more pollution there is,” concluded Ghiglione. “The relationship is linear.”

China produced around 60 percent of the world’s new solar power in 2025, making it the world’s largest manufacturer and deployer of renewable energy. It is installing more solar and wind capacity than the rest of the world combined.

However, a decade after the Cop21 talks in Paris – which led to the Paris Agreement, ratified by China in 2016 – China also remains heavily dependent on coal.

With Beijing now painting itself as central to global efforts to tackle climate change, the question is whether Chinese technology can help put the world on a viable climate path.

“We’re studying China’s technological progress, not only in photovoltaics, but also in wind power, solar thermal energy, onshore wind, offshore wind and nuclear energy,” Jiang Kejun, from the Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, told RFI.

If the world stays on track, he adds, it may still be possible to limit global warming to 1.5C using Chinese technology alone. That view reflects a broader shift in China’s message, with the transition framed not just as a national effort but a global one.

China’s energy transition differs from Europe’s. It is not built on reducing demand, but on meeting rising energy needs driven by urbanisation, industry and the electrification of the economy.

“Almost all the growth in energy demand comes from electricity, and almost all the growth in electricity this year has come from solar and wind,” says Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, a global energy think tank. China’s oil consumption is no longer rising, he adds, while gas use is rising but remains low.

China is not yet replacing fossil fuels outright. Instead, it is largely avoiding new fossil demand by steering growth towards low-carbon electricity. As a result, emissions are stagnating rather than notably falling, even as renewable energy expands.

While Beijing is aiming for its CO2 emissions to peak before 2030, energy stability remains the priority in a country with one of the world’s largest power systems.

Paris Agreement turns 10 as heat rises faster than global action

Race to cut costs

China’s strategy rests on producing electricity at very low cost. Vast solar and wind projects are being built in the Gobi Desert, a huge arid region in northern China, as well as in the Taklamakan in the far west, one of the world’s largest sandy deserts, and across the open grasslands and desert areas of Inner Mongolia.

These installations have been engineered to generate cheap electricity that is then sent east through ultra high voltage transmission lines, a field in which China is a global leader.

“China has made this product very affordable,” Jiang explains. “There is no overcapacity and no unfair price competition. Even with the existing supply of about 0.6 yuan per watt for photovoltaic modules, companies can still remain profitable.”

Western arguments about overcapacity no longer make sense in a world facing a climate emergency, he argues – adding that Chinese solar power has become cheap enough to outcompete fossil fuels even without subsidies.

“Even in a baseline scenario, investing in photovoltaics or carbon-free energy supply is already much cheaper than relying on fossil fuels,” Jiang says.

In his view, falling renewable costs mean fossil fuels no longer need to play a central role in future energy systems. That shift is already visible in the price of solar equipment.

“A solar panel today costs between $50 and $60 in countries that do not impose high tariffs on Chinese imports,” says Ember’s Dave Jones. “That panel can produce electricity for 20 or 30 years.”

Falling costs help explain why Chinese solar is spreading rapidly, including in poorer countries where access to electricity remains limited.

Coal as a safety net

But despite the expansion of renewables, coal remains central to China’s power system. Beijing continues to approve new coal plants – not to drive growth, but to secure supply in a country where power shortages are politically sensitive.

“Coal-fired electricity generation in China may not be rising, but it is not falling either,” Jones explains. “The system absorbs huge amounts of solar and wind, but coal is still there to guarantee stability.”

Coal now acts as a buffer when solar output drops or demand spikes, and China is investing heavily in making its coal plants more flexible.

“This is so plants can shut down during the day and let cheap solar feed the grid,” Jones says. “It is not happening fast enough, but it is happening at scale.”

The next challenge is closing coal plants rather than simply building fewer of them. But for now, political and economic stability come before a rapid exit from coal, as electricity demand continues to rise.

Clean energy surpasses coal but policy headwinds threaten 2030 goals, IEA warns

Making solar work

Producing large amounts of solar power is only part of the task. The bigger challenge is integrating it into the grid without causing instability.

Jones points to two key tools: flexible coal generation and energy storage, where China has built a strong technological lead.

“Battery technology developed by Chinese manufacturers has advanced significantly,” he says. “Prices have fallen to the point where storage is becoming profitable, allowing solar power to become dispatchable electricity.”

China already dominates close to 80 percent of the global battery supply chain, from lithium processing to recycling. Storage itself is not seen as a major barrier, with Chinese researchers saying existing technologies are already capable of supporting large-scale solar power.

“Whether in the Gobi Desert or even in the Sahara, new storage technologies are already good enough,” Jiang says. “The problems are manageable. All of this can work.”

Beyond electricity generation is a broader industrial shift. The goal is no longer just green power, but fully integrated industrial ecosystems supplied by cheap renewables.

“In the future, within a single industrial park, investment will cover photovoltaics, wind, power generation, hydrogen purification, synthetic ammonia or olefins, right through to the final product,” Jiang says. “The system is fully integrated, and such a design can be supported 100 percent by photovoltaics.”

African leaders urge fair funding with $50bn climate call

Power struggles

However, China’s expansion in clean energy has fuelled concern in Europe and the United States, where Chinese technologies are often viewed as a source of strategic dependence.

Climate urgency is used to push back against those concerns. “My main concern is whether the world can still maintain the 1.5C warming target,” Jiang says. “The pace of warming is extremely fast. We do not have time. We must act.”

He also warns against turning the energy transition into a geopolitical dispute, saying climate discussions lose substance once international power struggles take over.

At the same time, the rise of Chinese clean technologies is not being driven solely by state planning. Much of the expansion reflects market forces and growing demand.

“Manufacturers introduce panels into new markets, they appear on shelves for the first time and demand grows organically,” Jones explains.

Both experts agree that the future of the transition now largely depends on the Global South.

“Solar power offers a real opportunity to catch up,” Jones says. “Countries do not need to follow the historic path of building dependence on oil and gas. They can electrify directly with clean energy.”

Unlocking finance and technology transfers is now critical, Jiang argues: “The key issue today is to release Chinese technology and capital flows to developing countries as quickly as possible.”

Control over renewable technologies is increasingly tied to control over future energy systems, a point energy experts say will shape the coming decade.

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This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Clea Broadhurst.

A team at the Collège de France in Paris, led by Professor Marc Fontecave, has created a special catalyst – a material that speeds up chemical reactions – that can convert carbon into alcohols like ethanol and propanol. These alcohols can be used as vehicle fuels or to make plastics and other products.

The process works by first capturing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas warming our planet, from factories or even directly from the air.

Record surge in CO2 puts world on track for more long-term warming

 This CO2 is then converted into carbon monoxide, which the new catalyst transforms into useful fuels using electricity. When this electricity comes from renewable sources like wind or solar power, the entire process becomes carbon-neutral.

The catalyst is made from copper, with tiny amounts of silver and gold added to improve its performance. It’s particularly good at producing propanol, which is valuable both as a fuel and for making plastics.

The research, conducted in partnership with energy company TotalEnergies, was published in the journal Nature Materials in March 2025

 It represents an important step towards creating “e-fuels”, synthetic fuels made using renewable electricity, which could help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Under the monarchy, the Catholic Church held major privileges and played a central role in society. The French Revolution of 1789 upended this order. Revolutionaries nationalised church property and required priests to swear allegiance to the new republic. Those who refused were persecuted.

Napoleon later tried to ease tensions by signing the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII. The state recognised Catholicism as the faith of most French people, but also recognised Reformed Protestant, Lutheran and Jewish communities. It appointed bishops and paid the clergy.

This system lasted throughout the 1800s but kept tensions high – particularly under the Third Republic, when republicans viewed the church as blocking modern reforms and supporting conservative forces.

French court orders town to remove statue of Virgin Mary

The scandal that paved the path

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer from Alsace, was wrongly convicted of treason and sent to a penal colony in French Guiana. This miscarriage of justice split the country. On one side stood Dreyfusards, who defended his innocence in the name of justice and truth. On the other, the anti-Dreyfusards refused to question military authority.

The Catholic Church strongly backed nationalist, anti-Dreyfusard groups and relayed anti-Semitic arguments in the press. This shocked republicans, who questioned how the church could oppose the values of justice, equality and truth.

Many concluded that as long as it held influence over institutions and political life, it posed a danger to democracy.

Aristide Briand gained prominence during this period. A lawyer, journalist and moderate socialist, he was elected as an MP in 1902 after a campaign dominated by religious questions.

Prime minister Émile Combes initially avoided any reform, despite pressure from the republican majority. But rising tensions with the Vatican changed his stance. He created a commission on separation, with Briand as rapporteur.

From March 1905, Briand orchestrated one of the longest and most passionate debates in French parliamentary history. Two visions of France faced each other: one monarchist and Catholic, the other republican and secular.

Briand chose the middle way and pushed for compromise, rather than confrontation.

“We are not making a law against religious worship, we are making a law of freedom,” he said. His aim was to guarantee freedom of conscience and equality before the state without persecuting religions.

The word laïcité, or secularism, does not appear in the 1905 text, which uses only the term separation.

However, the first two articles set out the founding principles of today’s laïcité: the state must stay neutral towards all religions, favour none, finance none and prohibit religious expression in public institutions. The term secularism entered the constitution in 1946.

‘Growing number’ of French schoolgirls flouting secularism rules

Violence over inventories

Many Catholics saw the 1905 law as a tragedy and refused to accept it. Church property had to be transferred to new religious associations, which required a full inventory of buildings and objects. State agents entered churches and presbyteries to draw up reports, and many faithful viewed the inventories as a desecration of sacred places.

Prefects were told to enforce the law while avoiding clashes, but violence still broke out. Bloody incidents occurred in Haute-Loire and in the Nord region near the Belgian border.

Géry Ghysel, a 35-year-old butcher and father of three, died in the village church of Boeschèpe, in the Nord department, during an inventory that turned violent.

On 11 February, 1906, less than two months after the law’s adoption, Pope Pius X issued a fierce response. In his encyclical Vehementer Nos, he condemned the separation of church and state.

“That the state must be separated from the church is an absolutely false thesis, a most pernicious error,” he said, adding that it was “gravely insulting to God, for the creator of man is also the founder of human societies and he preserves them in existence as he sustains us”.

Diplomatic relations remained broken until 1921.

Top French court upholds ban on Muslim abaya robes in schools

Exceptions in Alsace-Moselle

The 1905 law was not applied in Alsace-Moselle, which was then under German rule, having been annexed after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.

When the region was returned to France in 1918, the 1905 law still did not apply there, and still today the Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle departments have retained local rules inherited from the 1801 Concordat, which had defined the relationship between the French State and the Catholic Church.

Priests, pastors and rabbis are paid by the state through the interior ministry, and religious education remains compulsory in public schools in the region.

The 1905 law devotes very few articles to public education, since secularisation of schools had already begun with the Jules Ferry laws of 1882, which removed religious teaching and replaced it with moral instruction.

By 1886, teaching posts were held only by lay staff. The Ligue de l’Enseignement, created in 1866, became a major supporter of a free, secular and compulsory school system and built a wide network of cultural and educational activities as an alternative to Catholic youth groups.

Modern battles

With social change, debate over religion in public spaces – especially in schools – has remained intense.

In 1989, several Muslim pupils were suspended from a school in Creil, north of Paris, for refusing to remove their headscarves. More such cases followed.

On 17 December, 2003, then president Jacques Chirac called for a stronger defence of secularism amid rising demands from religious and community groups.

A law adopted in March 2004 and applied from the following school year banned conspicuous religious signs in public schools, including headscarves, kippas and large crosses.

French court issues severe sentences to those linked to beheading of teacher Samuel Paty

After the January 2015 terrorist attacks at the office of Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, then education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem reaffirmed the importance of secularism. She established national Secularism Day on 9 December and introduced new moral and civic education guidelines.

The murder of history and geography teacher Samuel Paty on 16 October, 2020, after he used Charlie Hebdo satirical cartoons in a class on laïcité and press freedom, marked a turning point. Schools had become targets for extremists because of the secular values they defend.

In August 2021, the 1905 law was amended with the tightening of controls on organisations and places of worship, particularly with regards to foreign funding – presented as a way to combat radical Islamism and other forms of separatism.

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This article was adapted from the original version in French by Patricia Blettery.

After the Algerian parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to criminalise French colonisation and to demand an official apology, the French foreign ministry said the move was “manifestly hostile, both to the desire to resume Franco-Algerian dialogue and to calm, constructive work on issues of historical memory”.

Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux reiterated that France had “no intention of commenting on Algerian domestic politics”, but also said he regretted the move, pointing to French President Emmanuel Macron’s work on the memory of colonisation, notably his creation of a joint commission of French and Algerian historians.

Missing apology

In 2021 Macron acknowledged that France’s colonisation of Algeria from 1830 until 1962 was a “crime against humanity” but did not offer a formal apology.

The period was marked by large-scale deportations and mass killings – both countries disagree on how many people were killed.

Colonial history remains a major source of tension in relations between the two countries, which have deteriorated over the past months, marked in particular by the withdrawal of ambassadors and the reciprocal expulsions of diplomats. 

Confavreux said that France will continue to work towards resuming dialogue with Algeria which “can respond to the main interests of France and the French people, particularly with regard to security and migration issues”.

Reconciliation?

This is the third time since 2001 that the Algerian parliament has taken up such a proposal. The apology demanded in the law would be a prerequisite for any “reconciliation of historical memory”.

However, on the right in France, any reconciliation based on an apology would be an insult, according to far right National Rally MP Philippe Ballard

“What would the reaction be if the French National Assembly were to vote a resolution condemning the massacres committed by the FLN [Algerian National Liberation Front] and demanding official apologies from the Algerian authorities?” he asked RFI.

Conservative Les Republicans Senator Max Brisson played down the significance of the vote, arguing that it lacked democratic legitimacy:

“This is not a parliament emerging from a democratic system and free elections,” he told RFI.

“The Algerian regime may pronounce as many condemnations as it wishes – it will not erase history. That history has both its dark and its lighter chapters.”

Confronting the past

On the left, politicians argue that French must confront its colonial past.

“Algeria is today an independent country and its parliament is free,” said hard left France Unbowed MP Thomas Porte.

“There is a reality: France committed crimes against humanity. France tortured, France killed. France owes apologies.”

Communist Senator Yann Brossat believes France should have already apologised, “without waiting for pressure from Algeria”.

Algerian MPs also passed an amendment that would allow the withdrawal of Algerian nationality from a dual national who commits acts deemed to undermine Algeria’s interests and security while abroad.

Dual nationality

This comes as French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who was arrested in Algiers, was sentenced in March to five years in prison for making comments about Western Sahara that Algerian authorities said undermined the country’s territorial integrity. 

He was freed last month after intense negotiations with Algeria by France and Germany.

Algerian Justice Minister Lotfi Boudjemaa told the APS news agency that measure was “exceptional” and included provisions designed to prevent any “arbitrary” application.

The UN’s highest court, based in The Hague, said in a statement on Tuesday that Brussels had filed a declaration of intervention.

Belgium’s intervention does not mean it fully supports South Africa’s accusations, nor that it defends Israel, but that it intends to clarify its interpretation of international law in the context of the case.

By joining the case, Belgium intends to reaffirm its commitment to enforcing the UN treaty on genocide and in particular argue that an ongoing military conflict should not prevent the court establishing whether a war crime had taken place, the country said in its official filing. 

Several other countries – including Brazil, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain and Turkey – have already joined the case.

South Africa brought a case at the United Nations’ highest court in December 2023, alleging Israel’s Gaza offensive breached the 1948 UN convention on genocide.

Israel denies the accusation.

‘Recognition brings obligation’: How declaring genocide could reshape war in Gaza

A final decision on the core of the case could take years.

In rulings in January, March and May 2024, the ICJ told Israel to do everything possible to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, including by providing urgently needed humanitarian aid to prevent famine.

The orders are legally binding, but the court has no concrete means to enforce them.

Israel has criticised the proceedings and rejected the accusations.

Recognition of Palestine

Belgium was among several countries to recognise the State of Palestine in September – though it said it would not formally take the step until Hamas has been excluded from Palestinian leadership.

Nearly 80 percent of UN member states now recognise Palestinian statehood, including France.

Why is France recognising Palestinian statehood and will it change anything?

South Africa has long championed the cause of Palestinians, likening their plight to its own oppressed people under apartheid – a comparison Israel strongly rejects.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has rejected South Africa’s case as baseless and cut aid to the country over its land reform policy as well as the genocide claim.

The US has also imposed sanctions on members of the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, along with former Hamas commander Mohammed Deif.

(with AFP)

That’s my boy

The former France skipper Zinedine Zidane was up in the posh seats at the Stade Moulay Hassan in Rabat with his family during Algeria’s match against Sudan. The 53-year-old was in town with his wife, Véronique, to see their second son, Luca, play his first game for Algeria at the Cup of Nations. Luca’s brothers, Théo and Elyaz, were also in the house to lend support. Luca, 27, was born in Marseille. But he opted to play for the land of his paternal grandparents when the invitation was proffered. Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic seemed happy after the 3-0 roll past Sudan. “I think he provided the team with lots of confidence,” said the 62-year-old of the goalkeeper. “He played well with the ball at his feet in one of his first big games for the team.” Algeria next face Burkina Faso in a tie that could decide who tops Group E. Not that such status matters, according to the coaches and players. Every game at this level is tough. Algeria should know. They lifted the Cup of Nations title in 2019 and in the following two tournaments have failed to make it out of the group stages.

Mahrez mark

Riyad Mahrez was the Algeria skipper at that Cup of Nations triumph in 2019 in Egypt. The whole tournament was supposed to be a party to hail Egypt’s star striker Mohamed Salah but South Africa skewered that idea with victory over the hosts in the last-16. However, since claiming the trophy in Cairo, woe has been the Algerian lot. Out following the pool stages in Cameroon trying to defend their crown. And fate was cruel too at the last time of asking in Cote d’ivoire where they relived the horror. Maybe it’s a West Africa thing. Perhaps it will come good closer to home. Mahrez bagged a brace in the 3-0 saunter past Sudan in Rabat to take his Cup of Nations tally to eight goals – an Algerian record at the competition. And Mahrez, who won English Premier League titles at Leicester City and Manchester City, appears in the mood for more personal and collective glory. “As a team we want to get to the final,” said the 34-year-old who now turns out for Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia. “We have not come here to make up the numbers.”

Age shall not wither him

Could have been a dream substitution for the Mozambican striker Domingues. He came on midway through the second-half of his side’s game against the defending champions Cote d’Ivoire. And they almost snatched a draw late on in Marrakesh. At 42, Domingues became the second oldest player to feature in a match at a Cup of Nations tournament. The former Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary holds that honour. He was 44 when he played in the 2017 final against Cameroon. Domingues, at least, can crow that he is the oldest man to roam the outfield in a tie at the competition since its inception in 1957.

Diallo A for victory

So this is Christmas. And musical allusions are done. Nods to cinema. Mozambique were breached early in the second-half as Amad Diallo scored Cote d’Ivoire’s goal – his third for his country but his first at a Cup of Nations tournament. The Manchester United striker was also deemed man-of-the-match. “It’s an immense honour to have such a prize,” beamed the 23-year-old as he clasped his shiny bauble. “But it’s more important that we got the three points for the victory and we showed why we are the champions of Africa.”

Christmas present

Algeria striker Ibrahim Maza also celebrated his first goal at the Cup of Nations. The 20-year-old was born in Berlin and appeared for Germany teams right up to the under-20 level before taking up the chance to play for the land of his father. The Bayer Leverkusen midfielder entered the fray at the Stade Moulay Hassan in Rabat after 60 minutes for Fares Chaibi. He added Algeria’s third goal five minutes from time. “I’m very happy,” Maza told the news agency The Associated Press. “My first goal in my first Cup of Nations game. It couldn’t go any better for me.” How about a winner in the final? Now, really. That’s not the Christmas spirit.

In 2020, journalist Arnaud Wust wrote a children’s story during a Covid-19 lockdown. What began as a family project has since blossomed into Xam Xam – an organisation teaching school children in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire about environmental protection through storytelling and tree planting.

“Everybody told me: ‘You’ve have been working to protect the environment in Senegal for 20 years, so why not make it into a project?’ And that’s how the story began,” Wust told RFI.

Planting knowledge

Named for a Wolof phrase meaning “knowledge sharing”, Xam Xam uses the children’s story Esther and Madiba Save Their Forest to teach children about the environment.

Volunteers spend 10 days at a time visiting schools, sharing the story, giving out books, playing games and planting trees with the children.

The organisation has planted nearly 800 trees since it started. Sana Sabaly from Senegal, who manages a tree nursery and joined the project in 2022, adds practical skills to the storytelling.

“Sana teaches children to make compost and to sow trees, and they leave with a tree seed to plant at home,” Wust said.

Sabaly comes from Tambacounda in eastern Senegal, a region once known for its lush forests but which has now been stripped bare by logging. “We are witnessing a lot of logging, which has killed the greenery in this region that was home to many plant species,” Sabaly explained.

Madagascar and Congo-Brazzaville team up to protect vanishing forests

Taking books to villages

The group focuses on reaching remote communities where children rarely learn about the environment, and books and libraries are often scarce.

In Côte d’Ivoire, the huge cocoa, rubber and palm oil industries drive deforestation, yet many children don’t see the dangers of growing just one type of crop.

“Nobody ever explained to people in remote villages that if trees were cut down massively without replanting them, there would be a vicious cycle of deforestation,” Wust said. “But today, children understand.”

Growing impact

In four years, the organisation has visited more than 100 schools and reached nearly 30,000 children.

“I am always moved because I did not expect such an impact,” Wust said. “We have left a beautiful footprint.

“I once returned to a school and all the children had the story in their schoolbag. They all remembered the story, the characters, the song we sing together. A teacher recently told me that children fight over watering the trees we planted with them.”

Sister Marie-Madeleine Diémé, headmistress of Saint-Charbel-Makhlouf primary school located 20 kilometres east of Mbour, in western Senegal, recounts the children’s joy in taking “responsibility for caring for their tree each day”.

“For the moment, the responsibility for watering the trees falls to the school caretaker,” Marie-Madeleine said.

But water shortages make things tough. Some schools have no water at all. “Some children must bring water from their homes on their way to class in the morning,” Wust explained.

Guadeloupe to fell ‘exotic’ coconut trees to stem coastal erosion

Grassroots funding

Despite growing word of mouth – schools now often get in touch directly – Xam Xam remains a small organisation that relies on donations from individuals, businesses and other supporters.

“Since 2024, donors can deduct it from their taxes since we are a public interest association under the 1901 law. Often, it’s really the funding that drives the project. We would like to do more, but we are still somewhat limited today by funding,” Wust said.

All money raised goes straight to the project, with no overhead costs.

“We don’t receive any royalties. It’s a story that we publish, that we self-finance and that we give away,” said the journalist, who hopes to eventually team up with other countries to keep growing what he calls the tree of hope.

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This story was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s Timéo Guillon.

Ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in June, French and European scientists and policymakers gathered at the Mucem museum in Marseille in May for a summit organised by the Tara Ocean Foundation and the French branch of the Interparliamentary Coalition to End Plastic Pollution.

“Today, we are facing a plastic crisis, which is a major crisis affecting the oceans and the environment in all its dimensions – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss,” Henri Bourgois-Costa, head of public affairs for the Tara Ocean Foundation, told RFI. 

French schooner Tara charts a course for change ahead of UN oceans summit

Recycling not (the only) solution 

Today, at a global level, 50 percent of plastics are landfilled, 14 percent are recycled, 17 percent incinerated and 19 percent are poorly managed, explained Fabienne Lagarde, an environmental chemist at Le Mans university.

“Recycling is the tree that hides the forest, because the end of life of plastic is also polluting,” she said.

Moreover, 98 percent of plastics today are not biodegradable, and two-thirds are not recyclable, Lagarde pointed out.

France pushes for action as high seas treaty hangs in the balance

“Most of our waste is either buried or incinerated, leading to a major environmental leak that originates primarily from land,” explained Jean-François Ghiglione, a researcher from the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the scientific director of the Tara Microplastics mission 2019, whose initial results were published in April. 

“And more than 80 percent of plastics that end up in the sea come from the land,” he added.

The study, which focused on nine major European rivers, showed that 100 percent of these rivers were polluted by microplastics arriving directly from land.

“Microplastics come from the breakdown of large waste. A large piece of waste – through abrasion, friction and UV exposure – breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, almost infinitely,” explained Ghiglione. 

These microplastics measure between 0.025mm and 5mm, and are invisible to the naked eye.

Digital boom makes Marseille a global data hub – but at what cost?

The study also showed that 85 percent of plastics in the sea are in microplastic form. 

These microplastics are also found throughout the food chain, affecting 1.4 million birds and 14,000 mammals every year. Doctors are now investigating the consequences for human health.

“We absolutely must reach a global plastics treaty that reduces the quantity of plastics, because we have scientifically shown that the more plastic is produced, the more pollution there is,” concluded Ghiglione. “The relationship is linear.”

Amad Diallo scored the only goal of the Group F game at a rain-lashed Stade de Marrakech just after the restart.

Guela Doué swung over a cross from the right, Franck Kessié headed it down for Diallo to lash home past the Mozambican goalkeeper Ernan.

But Cote d’Ivoire failed to assert their authority after the Manchester United striker’s opener.

Kessié and Vakoun Bayo were guilty of laring misses and the Ivorians almost paid the price for their lack of precision at the death.

Geny Catamo had a chance to snatch a draw. But after weaving his way through a thicket of Ivorian defenders, the Sporting Portugal winger scuffed his shot.

Morocco launch 2025 Africa Cup of Nations with victory over doughty Comoros

In the other Group F tie, Cameroon saw off Gabon 1-0. Etta Eyong scored in the sixth minute for the five-time winners at the Stade Ardrar in Agadir.

 

In Group E, Burkina Faso left it late to claim the spoils. They scored twice in the nine minutes of second-half stoppage-time to topple 10-man Equatorial Guinea.

A player down following Basilo Ndong’s dismissal for a second yellow card in the 50th minute, defender Marvin Anieboh put Equatorial Guinea ahead in the 85th minute.

But as they dug in for a famous victory, Georgi Minoungou levelled and before Equatorial Guinea could digest the heartbreak, the Bayer Leverkusen defender Edmond Tapsoba hit the winner.

 

There was no such drama for Algeria. They overpowered 10-man Sudan 3-0 in Rabat.

Skipper Riyad Mahrez opened the scoring in the second minute at the Moulay Hassan Stadium in Rabat.

Sudan went down to 10 men just before half-time when Salaheldin Adil picked up his second booking.

Mahrez added his second on the hour mark and Ibrahim Maza rifled in the third in the 87th minute for the 2019 champions who have failed to advance past the group stages in the two tournaments since that triumph.

“I am happy to have got the three points,” said Mahrez. “It is a long time since we did that at the Cup of Nations so the main thing for us was to win.”

The 34-year-old added: “I have enough experience to know that this is just one match and we need to keep our feet on the ground.”

French national Thierry Breton, former member of the European Commission and an architect of the EU’s landmark digital regulations, is one of five people to be denied visas to the US.

Four others working for non-governmental organisations that flag online disinformation and hate speech are also targeted.

“These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” the State Department said in a statement announcing the sanctions on Tuesday.

It is the latest move by President Donald Trump’s administration to counter the European Union’s bid to monitor and moderate content on social media platforms, including US-owned Facebook, Instagram and X. 

Washington claims that EU rules result in censorship of right-wing viewpoints in particular, something Brussels denies.

France “strongly condemns” the visa ban, said Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. 

“The peoples of Europe are free and sovereign and cannot have the rules applying to their digital space imposed on them by others,” he wrote in a post on X.

EU crackdown on Big Tech comes into effect with changes for users

‘Witch hunt’

Breton compared the ban to a McCarthy-era “witch hunt”.

“To our American friends: censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he wrote on X.

The other people subjected to visa bans are Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, heads of German organisation HateAid for victims of online abuse; and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index. 

In a joint statement, Ballon and von Hodenberg called the restrictions “an act of repression by a government that is increasingly disregarding the rule of law and trying to silence its critics by any means necessary”.

The US claimed it was defending free speech. “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

EU clashes with Trump after new laws tighten control on big tech

Tit for tat

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation and other standards on major social media platforms, has brought it into conflict with the US administration and its allies at tech giants. 

The DSA stipulates that major platforms must explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and ensure researchers can carry out essential work, such as understanding how much children are exposed to dangerous content.

The EU imposed its first penalty under the act this month, fining Elon Musk’s X €120 million for failing to meaningfully verify users marked with a blue tick meant to indicate that their identity had been checked. It also accused the company of failing to provide transparency around its adverts and denying researchers access to data on internal practices.

Last week the US government signalled that key European businesses could be targeted in response, listing Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify among others.

Trump has previously threatened to impose tariffs on all countries with digital taxes, legislation or regulations, saying they were designed to harm or discriminate against American technology.

(with AFP)

Bickering lawmakers had been racing to agree on a budget by year-end, as the eurozone’s second largest economy faces mounting pressure to control its deficit and soaring debt.

But the parliament – increasingly divided since snap elections last year – only managed to agree on half of the two-part budget after two and a half months of debates.

Like the special law passed at the end of 2024, it does not allow for new spending.

The votes come after two and a half months of debate over the budget. Earlier this month lawmakers narrowly adopted the social security budget, after Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu agreed to a demand from the Socialist party to postpone an unpopular pensions reform.

PM Lecornu seeks way out of France’s latest budget impasse

Deep disagreements

But lawmakers have been unable to agree on the state budget, because of deep disagreements between the right-leaning Senate and the politically-deadlocked National Assembly on spending and how to meet deficit targets.

Lawmakers will reconvene at the start of January for new debates as France’s deficit and debt continue to rise.

“We must as soon as possible, in January, give a budget to the nation,” President Emmanuel Macron said Monday evening during a ministerial council where the special law was presented.

He reiterated that the new budget must hold France to 5 percent of GDP, a number that Lecornu reiterated when he addressed lawmakers Tuesday before the vote.

He announced “good news” that the deficit at the end of 2025 was at 5.4 percent, “which allows us to have a stable base”, he said.

French government survives cliffhanger vote on social security

January’s debate

If lawmakers are unable to agree on a budget in January, the government will be under pressure to resort to Article 49.3 of the constitution, which allows the government to force through legislation through parliament without a vote.

Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier already used that measure to try to pass the 2025 budget, triggering to a no-confidence vote, which he lost.

Under pressure from some in his own centrist party to use the mechanism, Lecornu for now is holding to the promise he made to the Socialists that he would not do so.

He believes the proposed budget could still pass “without the government intervening”.

(with AFP)

Grace Room Ministries once filled giant stadiums in Rwanda three times a week before the evangelical organisation was shut down in May. It is one of the 10,000 churches reportedly closed by the government for failing to comply with a 2018 law designed to regulate places of worship in termes of health, safety, and financial disclosures.

President Paul Kagame has been vocal in his criticisms of the evangelical churches that have sprouted across the small country in Africa’s Great Lakes region.

“If it were up to me I wouldn’t even reopen a single church,” Kagame told a news briefing last month.

“In all the development challenges we are dealing with, the wars… our country’s survival — what is the role of these churches? Are they also providing jobs? Many are just thieving… some churches are just a den of bandits,” he said.

The vast majority of Rwandans are Christian according to a 2024 census, with many now travelling long and costly distances to find places to pray.

But observers say the real reason for the closures comes down to control. 

Kagame‘s government is saying “there’s no rival in terms of influence,” Louis Gitinywa, a lawyer and political analyst based in Kigali, told AFP.

The ruling party “bristles when an organisation or individual gains influence”, he said, a view also expressed to AFP by an anonymous government official.

Lawyers decry arrest of Rwandan opponent Ingabire as ‘unlawful and arbitrary’

‘Deceived’   

The 2018 law requires churches to submit annual action plans stating how they align with “national values”. All donations must be channelled through registered accounts.

Pastor Sam Rugira, whose two church branches were shut down last year for failing to meet fire safety regulations, said the rules mostly affected new evangelical churches that have “mushroomed” in recent years.

But Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling.

“You have been deceived by the colonisers and you let yourself be deceived,” he said in November.

The closure of Grace Room Ministries came as a shock to many across the country. Pastor Julienne Kabanda, had been drawing massive crowds to the shiny new BK Arena in Kigali when the church’s licence was revoked.

The government had cited unauthorised evangelical activities and a failure to submit “annual activity and financial reports”.

AFP was unable to reach Kabanda for comment.

‘Open disdain, disgust’ 

A church leader in Kigali, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the president’s “open disdain and disgust” for churches “spells tough times ahead”.

“It is unfair that even those that fulfilled all requirements are still closed,” he added.

But some say the clampdown on places of worship is linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which around 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered.

Ismael Buchanan, a political science lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, told AFP the church could sometimes act as “a conduit of recruitment” for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Hutu militia formed in exile in DR Congo by those who committed the genocide.

“I agree religion and faith have played a key role in healing Rwandans from the emotional and psychological wounds after the genocide, but it also makes no sense to have a church every two kilometres instead of hospitals and schools,” he said.

Pastor Rugira meanwhile suggested the government is “regulating what it doesn’t understand”.

It should instead work with churches to weed out “bad apples” and help them meet requirements, especially when it comes to the donations they rely on to survive, he said.

 (AFP)

La Poste was targeted by a distributed denial of service (DdosS) attack on Monday, which overwhelmed its servers with targeted requests so that they become inaccessible.

The group said that this has had no impact on customer data, but it has “rendered its online services inaccessible”, disrupting package delivery days before Christmas, the busiest time of the year for La Poste.

Sending letters and greeting cards is still possible, but anything requiring tracking or access to the computer systems is not.

Customers of La Banque Postale can no longer access their online banking application, although “card payments on in-store payment terminals and transfers via WERO remain available”.

Online payments are still possible using SMS authentication, and banking transactions can be carried out at post offices, as well as cash withdrawals from ATMs.

“Our teams are mobilised to resolve the situation quickly,” the bank said in messages posted on social networks.

Other attacks

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

It comes a week after a group of hackers targeted the email servers of the French interior ministry, compromising files containing criminal records .

A known hacker has been detained in connection to the attack, which Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said was the result of “carelessness” and poor “digital hygiene” within the ministry.

Last week, prosecutors said the counter-intelligence agency was investigating a suspected cyberattack involving software that allegedly would have allowed remote control of a ferry operating between France, Italy and North Africa.

Nuñez strongly suggested that Russia was involved, stating that “foreign interference very often comes from the same country”, although no official attribution has been made.

France and other European countries that support Ukraine have accused Russia of waging a hybrid war through cyberattacks, disinformation, sabotage and other hostile actions.

(with newswires)

Semi Ajayi gave the 2023 Cup of Nations runners-up the lead after 18 minutes.

He rose the highest to power a header from Alex Iwobi’s cross from the right wing past the Tanzania goalkeeper Zuberi Masudi.

The lead was no more than Eric Chelle’s side deserved after dominating the opening exchanges.

Before the breakthrough, an Akor Adams header thumped the crossbar and Victor Osimhen uncharacteristically lashed two shots wildly off target.

Morocco boss Regragui declares skipper Hakimi fit for Africa Cup of Nations

But within five minutes of the restart, Tanzania were level. 

Novatus Miroshi laid on a pass for Charles M’Mombwa who slotted the ball past the Nigeria goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali.

Parity, though, was fleeting. Iwobi, again the architect, set up Ademola Lookman who drove his shot into the top left hand corner of Masudi’s goal.

Nigeria failed to exert more control as Tanzania, displaying more daring and guile, sensed a way back.

“When you see the level and the gap between the Nigerian team and Tanzania, you have to be cautious at the beginning,” Tanzania boss Miguel Gamondi explained after the defeat.

“We gave away possession too easily and this was the problem in the first half. We didn’t change directions enough. The plan was to do that in the second half,” he added. “We did that and we created more.”

Hakimi’s return for Cup of Nations adds another chapter to defender’s legend

The bravado would have been rewarded but for some wayward marksmanship.

Substitute Kelvin John scuffed two chances to level before defender Ibrahim Hamad lashed the ball over the bar with only Nwabali to beat.

Nigeria coach Eric Chelle conceded his side had scraped through.

“The most important thing at the Cup of Nations is to improve with every game,” said the 48-year-old, who led Mali to the quarter-finals at the last tournament in Cote d’Ivoire.

“We have to improve a lot of things defensively,” Chelle added. “And of course we have move more when we don’t have the ball and also when we have the ball.

“I congratulate my players for the win but we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

Tunisia match

The fruits of that labour will be on display on Saturday when Nigeria take on Tunisia, who opened their 2025 Cup of Nations campaign on Tuesday night in Rabat with a 3-1 waltz past Uganda.

Ellyes Skhiri and Elias Achouri were on target in the first half and Achouri added the third mid way through the second half. Denis Omedi grabbed Uganda’s consolation with a goal in stoppage time.

Africa Cup of Nations to be held every four years after 2028 edition

In Group D, Nicolas Jackson bagged a brace as the 2022 champions Senegal romped past Botswana 3-0 at the Stade ibn-Batouta in Tangier. Jackson scored the game’s opener in the 16th minute and doubled the advantage 13 minutes into the second half.

His replacement, Cherif Ndiaye, added the gloss in the closing stages.

In Group D’s other match, Democratic Republic of Congo beat Benin 1-0. Théo Bongonda scored the only goal of game at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat.

Côte d’Ivoire to defend title

On Wednesday, Côte d’Ivoire start the defence of their crown as the first round of games take place in Groups E and F.

The Ivorians play Mozambique in Marrakech and Cameroon face Gabon in Agadir in the Group F fixtures.

In Group E, Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea kick off the fourth day of action in Casablanca. That clash is followed by Algeria and Sudan in Rabat.

The top two teams from each of the six pools advance to the last-16 knockout stages along with the four best third-placed teams.

The final will take place at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium – the same venue as the opening match – on 18 January.

The pair were arrested on 28 February during a stopover at Istanbul Airport while carrying two suitcases containing about 12 kilos of drugs each.

The two friends from the Paris region, named as Ibtissem B., 22, and Mariam N., 23, were also each ordered to pay a fine of 100,000 Turkish lira – around 1,990 euros.

The judge sentenced them on the charge of “drug transport rather than drug trafficking, which would have exposed them to a heavier sentence,” Mariam’s lawyer Umut Alikasifoglu said.

Transfer to France?

“The objective now is to obtain their transfer to a prison in France,” he added.

Under Turkish law, cannabis trafficking is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while cocaine trafficking carries a minimum sentence of 30 years, the lawyers said.

“Let us hope that the French and Turkish authorities quickly reach an agreement on their transfer,” Ibtissem’s French lawyer Carole-Olivia Montenot said.

The two women had been held for 10 months in Silivri prison, Turkey‘s largest detention facility, west of Istanbul.

They have always claimed that they had no knowledge of what they were carrying.

‘Childhood friend’

During the first hearing of their trial in September, they claimed to have been manipulated by one of their friends, Taeric O., and an accomplice of his, who allegedly gave them two suitcases in Bangkok to deliver to Taeric O.’s mother in Belgium.

According to Ibtissem’s aunt, Taeric O., “a childhood friend”, is in prison in Amiens (northern France), which the two women were unaware of.

“They are two really naive girls, two kids who got taken in,” she told French news agency AFP.

Taeric O. promised them a luxurious stay in Bangkok, with plane tickets, hotel and all expenses paid, and was supposed to join them – which he never did.

Appearing before the judge on Tuesday, the young women, assisted by an interpreter, expressed their “regret for not checking” the contents of the suitcases and apologised.

“If we had known there was marijuana inside, we would never have taken the suitcases. We weren’t going to risk going to prison. I didn’t even check if there was a padlock, I trusted my friend Taeric,” Ibtissem said in her defence at the first hearing.

(with AFP)

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Monday he would summon US Ambassador Kenneth Howery after Trump named Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland.

Landry responded to the appointment in a post on X saying “it’s an honour to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US.”

Greenland belongs to Greenlanders

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement that Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, belongs to Greenlanders.

”We have said it before. Now, we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law,” they said. “They are fundamental principles. You cannot annex another country. Not even with an argument about international security.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Antonio Costa also insisted that territorial integrity and sovereignty were “fundamental principles of international law”.

“These principles are essential not only for the European Union but for nations around the world. We stand in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland,” they wrote on X.

US national security

Trump has repeatedly argued for Greenland to become part of the United States, and has not ruled out using military force to take control.

His arguments have been the island’s strategic importance and its mineral resources, including rare earth deposits that could become easier to access as the polar ice melts and new shipping routes emerge.

On Monday Trump reasserted that the US needs Greenland “for national security, not for minerals”.

“If you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need it for national security. We have to have it,” Trump told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida.

Greenland’s position between Europe and North America makes it a key site for the US ballistic missile defence system, which is housed at the US military base in Pituffik, under an agreement with Denmark.

Denmark easing tensions

Under a 2009 agreement, Greenland has the right to declare independence from Denmark. But while most of the island’s 57,000 people want to become independent, they do not wish to become part of the US , according to an opinion poll in January.

In a Facebook post addressed to Greenlanders, Nielsen said the appointment of a US special envoy had not changed anything for Greenlanders.

“We will determine our future ourselves. Greenland is our country,” he wrote.

Greenland remains dependent on Danish subsidies, and relations with its former colonial ruler have been strained, though Denmark has sought to repair them over the past year while also trying to ease tensions with the Trump administration by investing in Arctic defence.

The Trump administration put further pressure on Copenhagen on Monday when it suspended leases for five large offshore wind projects being built off the East Coast of the US, including two being developed by Denmark’s state-controlled Orsted.

(with newswires)

The “duty deposits”, which range from 21.9 percent to 42.7 percent, come into effect on Tuesday, impacting a range of items, including fresh and processed cheese, curd, blue cheese, and some milk and cream, the commerce ministry in Beijing said in a statement.

Chinese officials launched an anti-subsidy probe in August 2024 after receiving a request from the Dairy Association of China.

The probe will conclude in February, but China’s commerce ministry said Monday that preliminary findings showed a link between EU subsidies and “substantial damage” to its domestic dairy industry.

European officials contested such conclusions.

Disagreement over dairy subsidies

“Our assessment is that the investigation is based on questionable allegations and insufficient evidence, and that the measures are therefore unjustified and unwarranted,” a European Commission trade spokesman said.

“Right now, the Commission is examining the preliminary determination and will provide comments to the Chinese authorities,” he added.

The French dairy association FNIL, which includes major groups Danone and Lactalis, also criticised the duties.

“It’s a shock, a blow,” said the trade association’s chief, François-Xavier Huard. He said the decision was in particular a blow for French food company Savencia, a major exporter of cheese to China, and which had cooperated extensively with Chinese authorities.

Pork dumping

The levies on EU dairy come a week after Beijing said it would impose duties on EU pork imports for five years, to counter alleged dumping of products on the Chinese market.

Those duties came into effect on 17 December and range from 4.9 percent to 19.8 percent, down from temporary levies of 15.6 to 62.4 percent that had been in place since September.

Escalation

China and the EU have been locked in a trade struggle fuelled by what many European countries view as an unbalanced economic relationship.

Trade relations hang in the balance as China’s top diplomat tours Europe

In 2024 the EU began moving towards imposing hefty tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, arguing that Beijing’s subsidies were unfairly undercutting European competitors.

Beijing denied that claim and announced what were widely seen as retaliatory probes into imported European brandy, pork, and now dairy products.

After the EU went ahead with the tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Beijing forced EU brandy manufacturers to raise prices or face anti-dumping taxes of up to 34.9 percent.

Beijing files WTO complaint over EU’s new taxes on Chinese EVs

The EU ran a trade deficit of more than €297 billion ($350 billion) with China in 2024.

French President Emmanuel Macron said this month that Europe would consider adopting strong measures against China, including tariffs, if the trade imbalance was not addressed.

Alongside trade frictions, China and the EU are at odds on issues such as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The EU has urged China to exert pressure on Moscow to end the war, but Beijing has shown no sign of acceding.

 (AFP)

Trump is due to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 29 December in Florida.

The meeting is the latest attempt to revive the Gaza plan, which aims to move from a ceasefire towards the creation of a new governing arrangement in Gaza, the deployment of an international force and the disarmament of Hamas.

On Friday, Turkish and Egyptian officials met their US counterparts in Miami.

With a ceasefire in place in Gaza, Washington is pushing the next phase of its plan, which would include Turkish troops in an International Stabilisation Force.

From Washington’s perspective, Turkey’s involvement is considered essential to the plan, said Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution.

Turkey and Iran unite against Israel as regional power dynamics shift

Israeli objections

Hamas disarmament depends on the creation of a new Palestinian governing entity and the presence of international peacekeepers, with Turkey acting as a guarantor, Aydintasbas said.

“Without Turkey in this process, decommissioning Hamas weapons would not occur. That is implicit in the agreement.”

Turkey’s close ties with Hamas are well known, with senior Hamas figures reportedly hosted in Turkey. While Turkey’s Western allies label Hamas a terrorist group, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said its members are liberation fighters.

Trump has publicly thanked Ankara for using its influence to encourage Hamas to accept the peace plan.

Israel opposes any Turkish military presence in Gaza, fearing Turkey would support Hamas rather than disarm it.

Israel is also concerned about cyber attacks attributed to Hamas operating from Turkish territory and doubts Turkey would act in Israel’s interests, said Gallia Lindenstrauss, a Turkey analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“There’s a risk of an accident between Israeli and Turkish forces, given the already high tensions and suspicions. It’s hard to see a positive outcome,” she said.

Israel has struggled to persuade Trump to back its position. “The US has its own priorities, and is receptive to Ankara due to strong Trump-Erdogan relations,” Lindenstrauss added.

Turkey ready to help rebuild Gaza, but tensions with Israel could be a barrier

Turkey’s position

Erdogan, who has cultivated close ties with Trump, has said Turkey is ready to send soldiers to Gaza. Reports have claimed Turkey has a brigade on standby for deployment.

Turkey’s relationship with Hamas is a “double-edged sword”, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, head of the German Marshall Fund office in Ankara. From Israel’s point of view, Turkey is too close to Hamas, but “if you want to contribute to disarming them, dialogue is needed”.

Any Gaza mission would be risky, but the Turkish army has decades of experience, Unluhisarcikli said. “It has a proven track record in terms of post-conflict stabilisation from the Balkans to Afghanistan. They have proven they can operate in such environments.”

Despite strained diplomatic ties, the Turkish and Israeli militaries still maintain open communication. The two countries operate a hotline to avoid clashes between their air forces over Syria, demonstrating continued military coordination despite political tensions.

Turkey warns Kurdish-led fighters in Syria to join new regime or face attack

Regional doubts

Egypt and Saudi Arabia distrust Turkey’s ties with Hamas and question its intentions in Gaza, Unluhisarcikli said, with concerns that echo memories of Ottoman-era rule.

On Monday, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack met Netanyahu in an effort to ease Israeli concerns. However, prospects for a breakthrough are likely to depend on this month’s meeting between Netanyahu and Trump.

Incentives may be offered to encourage Israel to accept Turkey’s role, but the issue is unlikely to be resolved that way, said Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution.

“Because this is such a fundamental and existential issue for Israel, I don’t think incentives will work,” she said.

“As to whether or not Trump would go so far as to withhold military or financial aid, it would be very unlikely. Rather, it may just let this situation sort of fester. I don’t think the Americans have a clear plan to push forward if the answer from Netanyahu is to say no.”

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas!

This is Alberto Rios’ poem, which you heard him read on the programme.

Christmas on the Border, 1929

1929, the early days of the Great Depression.

The desert air was biting, but the spirit of the season was alive.

Despite hard times, the town of Nogales, Arizona, determined

They would host a grand Christmas party

For the children in the area—a celebration that would defy

The gloom of the year, the headlines in the paper, and winter itself.

In the heart of town, a towering Christmas tree stood,

A pine in the desert.

Its branches, they promised, would be adorned

With over 3,000 gifts. 3,000.

The thought at first was to illuminate the tree like at home,

With candles, but it was already a little dry.

Needles were beginning to contemplate jumping.

A finger along a branch made them all fall off.

People brought candles anyway. The church sent over

Some used ones, too. The grocery store sent

Some paper bags, which settled things.

Everyone knew what to do.

They filled the bags with sand from the fire station,

Put the candles in them, making a big pool of lighted luminarias.

From a distance the tree was floating in a lake of light—

Fire so normally a terror in the desert, but here so close to miracle.

For the tree itself, people brought garlands from home, garlands

Made of everything, walnuts and small gourds and flowers,

Chilies, too—the chilies themselves looking

A little like flames.

The townspeople strung them all over the beast—

It kept getting bigger, after all, with each new addition,

This curious donkey whose burden was joy.

At the end, the final touch was tinsel, tinsel everywhere, more tinsel.

Children from nearby communities were invited, and so were those

From across the border, in Nogales, Sonora, a stone’s throw away.

But there was a problem. The border.

As the festive day approached, it became painfully clear—

The children in Nogales, Sonora, would not be able to cross over.

They were, quite literally, on the wrong side of Christmas.

Determined to find a solution, the people of Nogales, Arizona,

Collaborated with Mexican authorities on the other side.

In a gesture as generous as it was bold, as happy as it was cold:

On Christmas Eve, 1929,

For a few transcendent hours,

The border moved.

Officials shifted it north, past city hall, in this way bringing

The Christmas tree within reach of children from both towns.

On Christmas Day, thousands of children—

American and Mexican, Indigenous and orphaned—

Gathered around the tree, hands outstretched,

Eyes wide, with shouting and singing both.

Gifts were passed out, candy canes were licked,

And for one day, there was no border.

When the last present had been handed out,

When the last child returned home,

The border resumed its usual place,

Separating the two towns once again.

For those few hours, however, the line in the sand disappeared.

The only thing that mattered was Christmas.

Newspapers reported no incidents that day, nothing beyond

The running of children, their pockets stuffed with candy and toys,

Milling people on both sides,

The music of so many peppermint candies being unwrapped.

On that chilly December day, the people of Nogales

Gathered and did what seemed impossible:

However quietly regarding the outside world,

They simply redrew the border.

In doing so, they brought a little more warmth to the desert winter.

On the border, on this day, they had a problem and they solved it.

 

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: The traditional “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” sung by the Gracias Choir conducted by Eunsook Park, and “Santa Claus Llego A La Ciudad” by J.Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, sung by Luis Miguel.

Be sure and tune in next week, 27 December, for a “My Ordinary Hero” essay by your fellow listener Rasheed Naz.     

As France marks 200 years since Louis Braille invented his system of raised dots allowing blind people to read by touch, we visit the country’s only remaining Braille printing house. At the CTEB in Toulouse, a team of 12 staff and mainly blind volunteers transcribe more than 200 books each year for both adults and children, along with bank statements, brochures and other documents. Despite extremely high production costs, the centre sells its books at the same price as the originals to ensure equal access. Now deeply in debt, it’s calling for state aid to survive – arguing that, even in the age of digital Braille and audio books, turning a page is important in learning to read. (Listen @3’15”)

Scientists are increasingly convinced that the trillions of bacteria living in the human digestive system also contribute to health and wellbeing. Le French Gut is a large-scale study intended to track the connection between the microbiome and disease. Launched in 2023, it aims to recruit 100,000 French participants, to contribute samples and fill out health and diet questionnaires. Now the scientists are looking to get more children on board. Project director Patrick Vega shows the lab and biobank where the bacteria are being analysed, and talks about the discoveries in the gut that could help predict or even cure diseases. (Listen @21’20”)

Seventeenth-century French midwife Louise Bourgeois, the first woman in Europe to publish a medical book, was a pioneer in women’s health at a time when only men were allowed to be doctors and women delivered babies according to tradition, not science. (Listen @14’45”)

Episode mixed by Cecile Pompeani.

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

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, hosted in Tehran by his Iranian counterpart Abbad Aragchi, declared that both countries see “Israel as the biggest threat to stability in the Middle East”, because of its “expansionist policies”.

Ankara is increasingly angry over Israel’s military operations in Syria, which it considers a threat to security. Syria‘s new regime is a close Turkish ally.

With the Iranian-backed Syrian regime overthrown and Iran’s diminishing influence in the Caucasus, another region of competition with Turkey, Tehran is viewed by Ankara as less of a threat

“Ankara sees that Tehran’s wings are clipped, and I’m sure that it is also very happy that Tehran’s wings are clipped”, international relations expert Soli Ozel told RFI.

Ozel predicts that diminished Iranian power is opening the door for more cooperation with Turkey.

Cooperation

“Competition and cooperation really define the relations. Now that Iran is weaker, the relationship is more balanced. But there are limits, driven by America’s approach to Iran”, said Ozel.

Murat Aslan of SETA, the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank, points out that changing dynamics inside Iran also give an impetus to Turkish diplomatic efforts towards Tehran.

Israel talks defence with Greece and Cyprus, as Turkey issues Netanyahu warrant

“Iran is trying to build a new landscape in which they can communicate with the West, but under the conditions they have identified”, observes Aslan.

“In this sense, Turkey may contribute. So that’s why Turkey is negotiating or communicating with Iran just to find the terms of a probable common consensus.”

However, warming relations between Turkey and Iran are not viewed in a favourable light by Israel, whose ministers have in turn accused Turkey of being Israel’s biggest threat.

Tensions are rising over Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strong support of Hamas, which Ankara’s Western allies have designated as a terrorist organisation.

“Obviously, Israel does not want to see Iranian and Turkish relations warm as Israel sees Iran as an existential threat and hence anything that helps Iran is problematic from Israel’s perspective”, warns Turkey analyst Gallia Lindenstrauss at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Turkey warns Kurdish-led fighters in Syria to join new regime or face attack

This month, Israeli security forces accused Hamas of operating a major financial operation in Turkey under Iranian supervision. Many of Hamas’ senior members are believed to reside in Istanbul.

American ally

Israeli concerns over Turkey’s improving Iranian ties will likely be exacerbated with Turkish officials confirming that a visit by President Erdogan to Iran has been “agreed in principle”.

Ankara also has a delicate balancing act to make sure its Iranian dealings don’t risk antagonising its American ally, given ongoing tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Good relations with Washington are vital to Ankara as it looks to US President Donald Trump to help ease tensions with Israel. “For Israel, the United States shapes the environment right now”, observes Aslan.

“The Turkish preference is to have an intelligence diplomacy with Israelis, not to have an emerging conflict, but rely on the American mediation and facilitation to calm down the situation”, added Aslan.

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

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

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

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

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

Our website “Le Français facile avec rfi” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as 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 on the best-suited activities for your level according to your score.

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

There’s 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 excellent staff of journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

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

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

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

Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in all 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 8 November, I asked you a question about an article sent to us by RFI English correspondent Michael Sarpong Mfum, who reports for us from Ghana. His article, “Invasive water hyacinths choke wildlife and livelihoods in southern Ghana”, is about the water hyacinth, a free-floating aquatic plant native to the Amazon River basin in South America. It’s also one of the world’s most invasive species.

The water hyacinth has found its way to Ghana, notably Lake Volta, a vast reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam that generates much of the country’s power.

Your question was: What are the consequences for Ghana’s Eastern and Volta regions from this hyacinth invasion? What did Jewel Kudjawu, the director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warn about?

The answer is, to quote Michael’s article: “Jewel Kudjawu, director of the EPA’s Intersectoral Network Department, warned that the weed’s uncontrolled growth has dire consequences for aquatic life, fishing communities and hydropower production.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question: What was the best week of your life?

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

The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Radhakrishna Pillai from Kerala State, India. Radhakrishna is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Radhakrishna.

Be sure and look at The Sound Kitchen and the RFI English Listeners Forum Facebook pages to see the stamps from Bhutan with Radhakrishna’s picture!

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Debjani Biswas, a member of the RFI Pariwar Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India, and RFI Listeners Club member Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh. Rounding out the list are RFI English listeners Shihabur Rahaman Sadman from Naogaon, Bangladesh, and Bashir Ahmad, a member of the International Radio Fan and Youth Club in Khanewal, Pakistan.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme: Music for the Royal Fireworks by George Frederick Handel, performed by Le Concert des Nations conducted by Jordi Savall; “Igbo Highlife”, produced by Mr. Zion; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Lança Perfume” by Roberto de Carvalho and Rita Lee, sung by Rita Lee.

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 Jan van der Made’s article “EU Council president rejects political influence in US security plan”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 26 January to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 31 January 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 find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has warned that journalists are facing increasing dangers worldwide, with Israel emerging as the most lethal country for media workers for the third year running.

In its annual report, the Paris-based watchdog says 67 journalists were killed over the past 12 months – and almost half of them died in Gaza at the hands of Israeli forces.

Twenty-nine Palestinian journalists were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the reporting period, alongside what RSF calls “a whole strategy” by Israeli authorities that has severely restricted reporting on the conflict.

The NGO’s director Thibaud Bruttin told RFI that the pattern of deaths in Gaza cannot be dismissed as the tragic fallout of war.

“There has been a whole strategy that has been put in place since October 2023,” he explained.

“First, there has been the decision to block the entry of Gaza to international journalists. Second, there has been a unit set up within the Israel Defence Forces to smear Palestinian journalists… and then we’ve seen massive strikes against journalists, which have been actually claimed as targeted strikes by the IDF.”

RSF says nearly 220 journalists have been killed since the Gaza war began in late 2023. Of those, the organisation believes 56 have been deliberately targeted.

Bruttin stressed that RSF is not including people loosely associated with Hamas in that count, as some Israeli officials have claimed.

“We’re talking about journalists – reporters who have been working, some of them for years, with respected international outlets – and these independent reporters have been deliberately targeted by the IDF.”

The report also highlights one of the deadliest attacks on media workers this year – a so-called ‘double-tap’ strike on a hospital in south Gaza on 25 August, which killed five journalists, including contributors to news agencies Reuters and the Associated Press.

French unions take Israel to court for restricting media access to Gaza

Information blackout

A key concern for RSF is the ongoing block on independent media access to Gaza. Foreign reporters can only enter on tightly controlled military tours, despite sustained calls from media groups and press freedom organisations.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel has taken the matter to court, challenging the IDF’s decision to deny access.

Bruttin said the case has reached a critical point. “There has been an intermediary decision by the Supreme Court… and we’re expecting any time in the coming weeks a decision which should, we hope, enable the press to enter.”

He added that a combination of the restrictions and IDF smear campaigns has cooled global solidarity with Palestinian journalists.

“The smear campaign … has had an impact on the solidarity among the profession,” he said. “It has been very hard to attract the attention of news media globally, and these news media outlets have been very timid in voicing concern over the fate of Palestinian journalists.”

But the scale of the recent strikes appears to have shifted sentiment. According to Bruttin, the deadly attacks of 10 and 25 August prompted “an uptick in the interest of media around this”, allowing RSF to launch a major drive on 1 September that “blew away the smear campaign of the IDF”.

With a fragile ceasefire now in place, he hopes momentum will grow around reopening access to Gaza and restoring independent reporting.

‘Nowhere in Gaza is safe’ says RFI correspondent amid call for global media access

Beyond the Middle East

While Gaza dominates the headlines, RSF’s report shows that the risks for journalists are a global concern.

Mexico remains one of the world’s most perilous environments for reporters, despite government pledges of greater protection. Nine journalists were killed there in 2025 – the deadliest year in at least three years.

Bruttin warns that the danger is spreading across Latin America. “The phenomenon has extended beyond the borders of Mexico,” he said. “We’ve seen journalists killed in Honduras, in Guatemala, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Colombia.”

Around a quarter of all journalists killed this year were in Latin America, with many targeted by cartels, narco-traffickers and armed groups. This trend, he said, is “very concerning” and presents a serious challenge for governments attempting to safeguard reporters.

Sudan and Ukraine also continue to be among the most dangerous places from which to report, with conflict making journalists prime targets on all sides.

Global press freedom at ‘tipping point’, media watchdog RSF warns

Journalists detained

Alongside killings, RSF’s report documents a surge in the number of journalists imprisoned for their work.

As of early December, 503 journalists were behind bars in 47 countries. China tops the list with 121 detained, followed by Russia with 48 and Myanmar with 47.

Bruttin believes the international community can do far more to secure the release of detained reporters.

“We need to effectively, deliberately campaign for the release of journalists,” he said. He pointed to the case of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who was released as part of a prisoner swap with Russia. “If governments prioritise the release of journalists, they can meet success.”

He expressed particular concern for the 26 Ukrainian journalists detained by Russia, many “outside of any legal framework”.

He told RFI that Ukraine has the ability to prioritise their release through prisoner exchanges, citing a recent precedent in which RSF helped confirm proof of life for a detained Ukrainian reporter, forcing Russia to acknowledge holding him. “He was part of one of the latest prisoner swaps,” Bruttin noted.

Although the overall number of journalist deaths remains below the highs of the early 2010s, RSF says the deliberate targeting of reporters and the erosion of access to information are becoming worryingly entrenched.

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.