US media has reported that US President Donald Trump‘s administration plans to welcome the first group of white South Africans as early as Monday, after Trump accused Pretoria of “racial discrimination” against them.

In a statement published Friday, South Africa’s foreign ministry contested the allegations and said the move was politically motivated.

“It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy,” the foreign ministry said.

“We reiterate that allegations of discrimination are unfounded,” it said. “Moreover, even if there are allegations of discrimination, it is our view that these do not meet the threshold of persecution required under domestic and international refugee law.”

South African deputy foreign minister Alvin Botes has raised the concerns directly with his US counterpart Christopher Landau, it said.

While challenging the US assessments of alleged refugee status, South Africa said it would “not block citizens who seek to depart the country from doing so”. 

Pathway to citizenship? 

Trump halted refugee arrivals immediately after taking office in January.

But in an executive order in February, he described Afrikaners as victims of “racial discrimination”, opening the way for them to resettle in the US.

Reports said afterwards that thousands of Afrikaners had approached the US embassy in Pretoria about the resttlement offer.

White S. Africans clamour for US resettlement after Trump order

US investigative outlet The Lever quoted a government source saying Washington was preparing to resettle up to 1,000 Afrikaners this year.

National Public Radio (NPR) said a group of 54 Afrikaans South Africans was scheduled to arrive Monday, citing three sources with knowledge of the matter.

The sources said a press conference was planned for the group’s arrival at Dulles airport in Virginia, attended by high level officials from the Departments of State and Homeland Security.

Trump accuses South Africa of ‘confiscating’ land, cuts funding

Growing US-South Africa tensions 

Relations between South Africa and the United States have nose-dived this year over a range of domestic and foreign policy issues, culminating in Washington’s expulsion of Pretoria’s ambassador in March.

The South African government passed a new land reform bill in January that Trump has claimed would allow the South African government to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property “without compensation”.

But so far no land has been confiscated and the government says the “expropriation without compensation” clause would be used only in rare instances after efforts had been made to reach a fair agreement with the owner.

South Africa unites against Trump as US freezes aid over land reform

Elon Musk, a leading adviser in the Trump administration, was born and raised in South Africa during apartheid. He has been critical of Pretoria, claiming it is leading a “genocide” against white farmers.

Official data however suggests most victims of killings are young black men in urban areas.

White Afrikaners are predominantly descendants of Dutch settlers who arrived at the tip of Africa more than three centuries ago. Today they make up most of South Africa’s 7.3 percent white population.

Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the race-based apartheid system that denied the black majority political and economic rights until it was voted out in 1994.

(with newswires)

It’s not just a design choice: it’s a symbol of how the climate crisis is reshaping the planet.

“The climate is changing, droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe,” said Brian Baihaki, the designer behind the new emoji.

“Trees have adapted in different ways to survive these droughts – for example by losing their leaves to conserve water.”

Baihaki first submitted the idea in May 2022 to the Unicode Consortium – the international group that decides which emojis get added to keyboards everywhere. It took almost three years and a strict selection process before the dead tree finally made it to screens.

From ornitherapy to kissing trees, how can nature benefit human health?

Steep competition

Each year, hundreds of emoji proposals are sent in. Most are turned down. To be approved, a symbol has to be usable across different cultures, languages and situations. Local foods, religious icons or region-specific objects rarely make it through.

“The criteria is strict. Emojis have to be able to carry more than one meaning and be usable worldwide,” explained journalist David Groison, author of La Révolution Emoji, a graphic novel about emoji culture.

Groison has made several attempts to get a wind turbine emoji accepted – always without success, and without explanation.

The dead tree, though, ticked all the right boxes.

It can stand for winter, wildfires, sickness or sadness. And it’s a search term people actually use. “Dead tree”, Baihaki pointed out, appears in more than twice as many online search results as the word “deciduous”.

In his application, he wrote: “This emoji is likely to be widely used because it represents prolonged droughts, which are becoming increasingly common.”

The Kenyan engineer building a sustainable future with recycled plastic bricks

Warming planet

That warning now feels urgent. The year 2024 was officially the hottest ever recorded. It brought extreme droughts to many parts of the world, especially Africa.

A UN report published in December warned that, unless our habits and systems change fast, drought could affect 75 percent of the global population by 2050.

Even worse, arid land has already spread by 4.3 million square kilometres in just 30 years. Drylands now cover 40 percent of the planet’s surface.

Two billion people already live in these dry zones – and that number could rise to 5 billion before the end of the century.

While droughts can come and go, aridity is permanent. It’s a shift that leaves soil exhausted and water scarce.

Do celebrity climate warriors amplify the message or embody the problem?

How emojis can help

But can a tiny image on a screen really change how people think? Perhaps. Three Italian researchers writing in the journal iScience last year said emojis could be a useful tool for raising environmental awareness.

“Emojis can be used to encourage public support for conservation efforts, to stress the urgency of protecting endangered species and to prompt people to take part in biodiversity events,” they wrote.

In 2021, the World Wildlife Fund worked with tech companies to mark World Wildlife Day using emojis to draw attention to the extinction of species.

For Belgian psychiatrist Daniel Desmedt, emojis do something deeper – they restore emotion to dry, digital messages.

“Back when people wrote letters by hand, there was the texture of the paper, the physical presence of the letter, the author’s unique handwriting – all sorts of details that could carry their personality and possibly even their emotion,” Desmedt said.

“With SMS, we’d lost some of that. Emojis bring feeling back into communication. They can express emotion more clearly.”

Desmedt believes the dead tree emoji will stand out. “The dead tree will trip us up. It won’t let us feel calm. There’s something disturbing about it – something that speaks to us on another level,” he said.

How weird fossils created by human garbage may baffle future civilisations

Eco-anxiety symbol

Stefano Mammola, one of the researchers behind the iScience study, said the emoji could help get people talking about big environmental issues.

“It could contribute to facilitating discussions and raising awareness about important topics in ecology and conservation, such as the climate crisis and the global loss of biodiversity,” he added.

But that will only work if people use it.

Right now, there are about 3,790 emojis available. Some – like the crying-laughing face – are everywhere. Others vanish quickly. The eye-in-speech-bubble emoji, launched in 2015 to signal anti-bullying efforts, was barely used and quickly forgotten.

“The dead tree will probably end up being used in ways we can’t imagine right now. It will depend on which other emojis it gets combined with,” Groison said.

One of the other new emojis released alongside the dead tree is a weary-looking face with dark circles under the eyes. It’s meant to represent the exhaustion many feel in today’s world.

Used together, they could become a visual shorthand for eco-anxiety – the emotional fallout of a planet in crisis.

This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s François-Damien Bourgery

The leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Poland met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Saturday to ratchet up pressure on Russia to commit to a 30-day ceasefire. 

“Ukraine and all allies are ready for a full unconditional ceasefire on land, air, and at sea for at least 30 days starting already on Monday,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Andriy Sybiga said in a post on X following the talks.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk were making their first joint visit to Ukraine.

More than three years after the Russian invasion, it’s a strong symbolic show of European unity, just a day after President Vladimir Putin struck a defiant tone at a Moscow parade marking 80 years since victory in World War II. 

US President Donald Trump has proposed a 30-day unconditional ceasefire as a step to end the conflict. Ukraine has agreed but Putin has resisted so far.

A three-day truce, unilaterally declared by Putin on Thursday and which Ukraine has declared a farce, ends on Saturday.

Moscow has ruled out a longer truce unless the West halts arms deliveries to Kyiv.

New push to end the war in Ukraine gains ground in Paris talks

‘Bloodshed must end’

The four countries, part of an alliance Britain and France have called “the coalition of the willing“, said in a joint statement they were “ready to support peace talks as soon as possible”.

“We are clear the bloodshed must end. Russia must stop its illegal invasion,” they said.

“Alongside the US, we call on Russia to agree a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create the space for talks on a just and lasting peace.”

On his way to Kyiv, French President Emmanuel Macron said that once a 30-day ceasefire was in place, there could be “direct talks between Ukraine and Russia“.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have hinted they are open to negotiating with each other but Zelensky says this would only be possible once a ceasefire takes effect.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who took office only this week, warned Russia will face tougher sanctions if it refuses the ceasefire.

If President Vladimir Putin does not agree to the truce, “there will be a massive hardening of sanctions and the massive aid to Ukraine will continue –  politically, of course, but also financially and militarily,” Merz said in an interview with German media. 

Germany’s Merz tells Trump US remains ‘indispensable’ friend

European force

The leaders are later scheduled to host a virtual meeting to update other European leaders on moves to create a European force that could provide Ukraine with security after the war.

Such a force “would help regenerate Ukraine’s armed forces after any peace deal and strengthen confidence in any future peace”, the leaders’ statement said.

Russia has said it will not tolerate any Western military presence in Ukraine once the fighting ends and has warned the proposal could spark war between Moscow and Nato.

The symbolic show of European unity comes a day after Putin hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping but also Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose country is an EU member, at the Moscow parade. Slovakia stopped supplying Ukraine with military aid in October 2023. 

War in Ukraine shifts France’s weapons industry into high gear

In an interview with the ABC news channel on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said arms deliveries from Ukraine’s allies would have to stop before Russia would agree to a ceasefire.

A truce would otherwise be an “advantage for Ukraine” at a time when “Russian troops are advancing… in quite a confident way” on the front, Peskov said, adding that Ukraine was “not ready for immediate negotiations”.

Russia has occupied about a fifth of Ukrainian territory since its invasion in February 2022 and intensified deadly attacks on the country this spring.

The US embassy in Kyiv said on Friday that a “significant air attack” could occur at some point within the next several days.

(with newswires)

Since 2006, France has on 10 May commemorated the slave trade and its abolition. with the date chosen as it marks the definitive adoption in 2001 of the Taubira Law, which recognises the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity.

The first cities to establish a memorial to slavery site in France were those with a history directly linked to the slave trade, such as the ports of Nantes, Bordeaux and La Rochelle. 

Bordeaux museum working to change narrative on slavery past

Arcueil, in the southern suburbs of Paris, however, wanted to have a memorial site despite not having this direct link.

The small town, of 21,000 inhabitants, has installed a commemorative stele at a memorial site located between two primary and secondary schools.

“The project was to install a broken column, like slavery that was also broken. You can see that the top is a little bit broken,” explains Guillaume Guillot, deputy mayor of Arcueil.

“Then the idea was to have a stele that would have a plaque on it, which is the recognition of slavery. There was work done, especially with young people, to decide what phrase we should write on the stele.

“In the end, it was narrowed down to the first article of the 2001 law, which recognises slavery as a crime against humanity by France,” he said. “We added this phrase from [French Martiniquais writer] Édouard Glissant about memory: Oblivion offends, and memory, when it is shared, abolishes this offence.”

Why descendants of France’s slaves are still fighting for their memory

A place of reflection

For the last 10 years, the town of Arcueil had held a commemoration every 10 May at the town’s war memorial. 

“There was no specific place of reflection dedicated to this, and it seemed important to create a place and something that would also endure,” added Guillot.

Damarys Maa Marchand, a women’s rights activist and member of the collective Les Chemins de la Mémoire (“the paths of memory”) said of the town’s new memorial site: “At times when I need some strength, I will come here to reflect.”

“We’ve been to places where other histories of France were commemorated,” she added. “We said, one day it will happen that we will have a place.”

The Foundation for the Remembrance of Slavery will now register this new memorial site.

France first abolished slavery in its colonies in 1794, during the French Revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte then reinstated it in 1802.

After years of pressure from abolitionists and uprisings in the colonies – notably in Martinique and Guadeloupe – slavery was permanently abolished in 1848.

► This report was adapted from RFI’s podcast Reportage en France, produced by Sylvie Koffi.

Relations have been turbulent since Donald Trump took office in January. Cooperation on trade, health, defence and diplomacy has suffered after several of Trump’s executive orders.

The US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner, but exports to America now face 30 percent tariffs.

On 7 February, Trump issued an executive order to resettle white South African refugees, saying the country’s leaders were doing “some terrible things, horrible things”.

US media say the first group of Afrikaner (white South Africans) “refugees” is due to arrive as from 12 May. South Africa expressed its “concerns” to the United States on 9 May and reiterated that “allegations of discrimination are unfounded”.

On 14 April, South Africa named former deputy Finance Minister Mcebesi Jonas as its special envoy to Washington after ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Rasool was “no longer welcome” in America, calling him “a race-baiting politician who hates America” and Trump.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump spoke on the phone on 24 April in what was described as a cordial exchange. Trump invited Ramaphosa to Washington and suggested he “bring the golfers over”.

South Africa unites against Trump as US freezes aid over land reform

RFI: Where are we at today with the relationship between South Africa and the United States?

Ronald Lamola: The relationship has always been dynamic and evolving, obviously with more challenges since the election of President Trump, particularly with the number of executive orders that are not based on any facts or truths.

In South Africa, the expropriation bills are aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past to ensure there is equitable distribution of all the resources of our country. This is done in line with the constitution, which has got sufficient safeguards against any arbitrary use of power by the executive or by the state.

It is in that context that we continue to engage with Washington because the relationship remains important. Washington is our strategic trading partner, the second biggest after China.

RFI: Is there more going on behind the scenes than we can see? Are relations improving despite the tensions?

Ronald Lamola: Indeed, there are still challenges, but we continue to engage at a diplomatic level.

International Court of Justice hears South Africa’s genocide case against Israel

RFI: Is South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice being used as a bargaining chip?

Ronald Lamola: No, it cannot be used as a bargaining chip. This is a matter of principle.

Our history is linked to that of Palestine and, as Nelson Mandela said, the struggle of South Africa is not complete until the Palestinian people are also free. There has been propaganda that Iran or Hamas is paying for these legal fees.

You can check the departmental websites where all reports are recorded. It is the South African government tax money that is paying for this case. There is no other hidden hand paying for the case.

RFI: Can you imagine a scenario where the United States might ask South Africa to drop the case against Israel in order to continue enjoying good relations with Washington?

Ronald Lamola: Unfortunately, I cannot imagine things that I don’t know.

RFI: What would South Africa’s position be if that were to happen?

Ronald Lamola: I don’t want to speculate about anything or any scenarios. We deal with what is in front of us.

As you are aware, in one of the executive orders, this issue of the case has been raised and, also in some of the bills that are before Congress. But this is a matter of principle. It’s based on the Genocide Convention. Principles cannot be negotiated.

RFI: Where does the case at the ICJ stand now?

Ronald Lamola: We are waiting for Israel to respond. As you are aware, we filed a memorial last year in June. The case has to take its normal course. The court must decide because the future of the world is dependent on certainty, on a rules-based international order, which is based on international law.

We have to ensure that international law is respected by all. The might cannot always be right.

RFI: South Africa says it will not cut ties with historic allies. President Ramaphosa said that South Africa will not be bullied. Is there a price to pay for standing by your principles?​​​​​​

Ronald Lamola: Nations must respect and abide by the rule of law. We are signatories to the Genocide Convention. We will respect and live by the UN Charter. Obviously, there will be pain that may come with it, but this is the pain we need to pay for the people of the world.

South Africa is a product of solidarity. We would not be free if it was not for the people of the world who suffered and stood in solidarity with us. So, we owe it to the people of the world to ensure that the UN Conventions and the UN Charter are protected and defended.

EU flags stronger partnership with South Africa with €4.7bn investment

RFI: The US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner. How can your country absorb the blow of 30 percent tariffs, if they go through by mid-July?

Obviously, it is going to be very difficult and damaging to our economy. We see it also as an opportunity for us to engage in bilateral agreements with the US that are mutually beneficial.

There are South African businesses invested in the US, and also US businesses invested in our country. About 601 companies from the US have invested in South Africa, responsible for more than 150,000 jobs in our country.

It is an important dynamic relationship, which has also brought a lot of technology in our country and improved our economy.

But, we also have to diversify markets. We are glad that the EU is opening its market to work with us and trade with us. We are also looking at other countries to trade with us.

We will, however, continue to engage with the US because we believe the relationship is mutually beneficial and we have to continue to nurture it for the benefit of our two nations.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity

Trump announced last Sunday that he was directing relevant government agencies to “immediately begin the process of instituting a 100 percent tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands”.

In a post on his Truth Social network, he added in capital letters: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Trump claimed Hollywood was being “devastated” by other countries’ “incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” which he called a “national security threat” and “propaganda”.

Trump’s move appears to target a business model favoured by American studios and filmmakers who obtain subsidies or tax breaks to film in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Hungary, Spain and Australia.

These countries benefit in turn from jobs generated by the filming for local industry workers, and tourism revenue.

Many US blockbusters are partially or entirely filmed outside the country, including some of the Marvel and James Bond movies and, most recently, Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning – which is due for its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.

Tom Cruise brings final chapter of ‘Mission: Impossible’ to Cannes

Hollywood in trouble

While Trump’s idea is divisive, there is widespread agreement that the US movie industry is in dire straits.

Hollywood is a major sector of the country’s economy, generating more than 2.3 million jobs and $279 billion (€266 million) in sales in 2022, according to the latest data from the Motion Picture Association.

But Hollywood has struggled to get back on its feet since the strikes by actors and writers that shut it down in 2023. The number of filming days in Los Angeles hit a record low in 2024, excluding the total shutdown in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Industry professionals reacted with a mix of scepticism and a degree of support to Trump’s suggestion of tariffs.

Deadline magazine quoted one Hollywood movie financier as saying he agreed with Trump’s goal of having more movies filmed in the US. “But obviously the need is for rebates, not tariffs. Tariffs will just choke the remaining life out of the business,” they were quoted as saying.

Some unions for actors and other media and entertainment workers, such as SAG-AFTRA, said they were awaiting more details on Trump’s plan but supported the goal of increasing home-grown production.

But others pointed out that even if a system could be devised to impose tariffs, this would do more harm than good to the US industry.

“The result of that would be to reduce production, to increase the cost of movies, to reduce the number of movies available for movie theatres and streamers to show, which would damage the distribution side of the business,” entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel told French news agency AFP.

From geeks to box office gold: why Hollywood is banking on video games

Reactions around the world

Outside of the US, there are serious concerns over what the introduction of these tariffs could mean.

The Canadian Media Producers Association said in a statement earlier this week: “The proposed actions outlined in US President Donald Trump’s announcement will cause significant disruption and economic hardship to the media production sectors on both sides of the Canada-US border.”

A survey of studio executives revealed that Canada ranked twice in their top five preferred production locations for 2025 and 2026, due to competitive tax incentive schemes on offer.

Bernard Larivière, who heads a film technicians union in the province of Quebec, told AFP a third of their members work on US productions.

“Major productions made from A to Z in the United States are rare,” said Evelyne Snow, a spokeswoman for a Canadian film technicians’ union, in an interview with the daily La Presse. “An American production in Montreal supports 2,000 people, from the cameraman to the limousine driver.”

So-called “Aussiewood” has for years used generous tax breaks and other cash incentives to lure foreign filmmakers, producing a string of hits for major Hollywood studios including The Matrix, Elvis and Crocodile Dundee.

“The collaboration is a good thing. So, let’s not get in the way of that,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told national broadcaster ABC.

For its part, the UK government said that it would take a “calm and steady approach” to Trump’s latest proposed tariffs amid ongoing bilateral trade talks.

The British Film Commission, the government’s investment agency, called the move “concerning” but added it hoped to continue “a strong, shared history of film-making” with the US.

However, Kirsty Bell, chief executive of production company Goldfinch, told UK news agency the Press Association that the move could leave UK freelancers in the film industry “jobless”.

French film industry 

France, which is hosting the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, is wary of the US position, but considers itself safer from the effects of any tariffs than other countries due to its state support system.

In an interview with France Inter radio on Wednesday morning, France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati said that Trump’s film tariffs, if implemented, would lead to “the American industry being penalised, not ours”.

France produced 231 films last year and recorded an increase in cinema admissions compared to 2023, while other European countries and the US saw a decline, industry figures showed.

“I hope this system [of promoting French film-making] will endure,” the head of the Cannes film festival Iris Knobloch told French news agency AFP this week. “The good health of the French film sector shows that this system is working well,” she added ahead of the festival which opens next Tuesday.

Thousands of French actors call for fair share of streaming profits

But the director of the French Film Commission, Gaëtan Bruel, sounded alarm bells last month, saying Europeans must “prepare for any eventuality” in the face of “a possible American offensive against our model” of state support for culture.

France has a complex mix of taxes, quotas and levies on film and TV distributors that help funnel money into the national film sector, making it Europe’s cinema powerhouse.

Some American directors and film studios, as well as streaming giants Netflix and Amazon, have lobbied the Trump administration to push back on EU legislation designed to protect and promote European film-making.

In a memo published by the White House on 21 February, Trump took aim at what he called “overseas extortion” – with a particular mention of laws that “require American streaming services to fund local productions”.

“On the other side of the Atlantic, powerful players in this industry are hostile to the French cultural exception,” Dati said.

Even though major US studios saw their shares plunge immediately after Trump’s announcement, the White House said no final decision on foreign film tariffs had been made.

It said in a statement: “The administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again.”

Follow all the news from the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with RFI.

(with newswires)

Malian authorities this week announced that all political parties and political organisations were suspended until further notice. They said the move was needed to preserve public order.

A broad coalition of parties had planned to protest the ban on Friday in Bamako, but the march was forbidden by a decree from transitional president General Assimi Goïta. The decree cited the need to preserve public order.

In a statement released on Wednesday night and received by RFI, the coalition thanked supporters for their “adherence to their ideals and objectives and for their exceptional mobilisation”, but confirmed the protest was being postponed.

They said a new date would be announced soon.

alian authorities announced on Wednesday that all work by political parties and other political organisations had been suspended until further notice, citing the need to preserve public order.

The protest had been scheduled for Friday 9 May at the Independence Monument in Bamako.

The coalition also accused authorities of trying to sabotage the protest. They said false information was shared online about the time and location of the march, and that threats were made on social media. They condemned efforts “at provoking violent clashes between Malians during the planned rally”.

Protests had also been planned in the city of Ségou.

Ousmane Diallo, a Sahel researcher with Amnesty International’s regional office for West and Central Africa, told RFI the junta’s decision “violates the principles of freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly and also freedom of expression, which are guaranteed by the Malian constitution of 2023”.

Mali forum backs five-year presidency for junta leader Assimi Goïta

Growing protests

Anger has been growing since a national council of political actors recommended that Goïta stay in power for another five years and that all political parties be dissolved.

Last week’s suspension of parties also applied to civil society groups and led to Mali’s biggest protest movement in years.

Opposition leaders and activists are now trying to build on momentum from large public rallies in Bamako on 3 and 4 May.

Several hundred people turned out, holding signs calling for multi-party elections and chanting: “Down with dictatorship, long live democracy.”

In a statement on 30 April, Amnesty International said it was alarmed by proposals to dissolve political parties in Mali, warning this would amount to a serious attack on freedom of expression and association.

The group urged the authorities to stop what it called an escalating crackdown on civic space, and to respect the rights of all Malians, including critics, human rights defenders and opposition politicians.

Amnesty also pointed to the 2023 constitution, brought in by the transitional authorities, which guarantees the existence of political parties and their right to “form and operate freely under the conditions determined by law”.

Podcast: After Senegal’s success, can Mali and Niger also hope for elections?

Political uncertainty

So far, there is no sign of a mass uprising. But Benedict Manzin, an analyst at strategic risk consultancy Sibylline, told Reuters that the coming days will be a key test.

“People have been intimidated into silence,” he said. “But if protesters come out in larger numbers than last weekend, and if they are tear-gassed or arrested, it could result in an even stronger backlash.”

Manzin also noted that several political opponents and government critics have disappeared from public view. One of them vanished on Thursday, his party said.

A real challenge to Mali’s military leaders is more likely to come from inside the regime, said Byron Cabrol, senior Africa analyst at Dragonfly Intelligence, told Reuters.

“A wave of protests would not be enough to kind of incentivise someone [within the military government] to take action,” he said. “But it’s undoubtedly a contributing factor, among many others.”

Babacar Ndiaye, of the Timbuktu Institute, said the situation “underscores the dangerous consequences of turning away from democratic principles and the rule of law”, especially when legal bodies like the Ecowas Court of Justice exist to protect citizens’ rights.

(with Reuters)

A group of 30 left-wing French politicians travelled to Algeria this week to take part in commemorations and call on France to acknowledge its responsibility.

“It’s important on this symbolic date to have a French delegation to show that in France there are not only enemies of Algeria, as we have seen with the heated debates of the past few months,” greens MP Sabrina Sebaï told RFI, referring to the degradation of diplomatic tensions between France and Algeria.

She said the visit aimed “to send a message also to say that there is a deep work to do on issues of memory and reconciliation”.

But for the French right, such a visit is a provocation.

“The day of 8 May, which is a day of national pride, you have French elected officials who go to Algeria to participate in self-flagellation and humiliation,” said Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the right-wing Les Republicains.

Listen to a history of what happened in Algeria on 8 May 1945 in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 128: 

The events being commemorated began on 8 May, 1945. As people gathered in the northern Algerian city of Sétif to celebrate the Allied victory, some brought out Algerian flags and banners calling for independence.

French authorities ordered the banners be removed. When some refused, troops opened fire on the crowd.

News of the shootings spread to nearby towns, including Guelma and Kherrata, where rioting broke out. Around 100 French settlers were killed.

In response, French authorities launched a brutal crackdown.

Charles de Gaulle, who led France at the time, gave the green light for “all necessary measures to repress all anti-French acts”.

Backed by army troops and the air force, colonial forces bombed villages and carried out summary executions across the region. Civilians – men, women and children – were killed throughout May and June.

France’s official silence

There is still no agreed figure for how many people died. Algeria says 45,000 were killed. Historians have estimated between 15,000 and 20,000.

“Eighty years later we do not know exactly the number of people who died in May and June 1945 because there was a code of silence,” said filmmaker Mehdi Lallaoui, who made a documentary on the Sétif massacre.

“The survivors of the killings were thrown in prison, and the state wanted to hide this event.”

De Gaulle reportedly said to “bury the whole affair”, and officials referred to it only as “the events”.

But in Algeria the Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres helped spur on the emerging movement for self-determination – energising, perhaps even uniting, what had been a fractured independence movement until then. 

Over the next few years, resistance groups became more organised. On 1 November 1954, Algerians started their revolution against the French, who were eventually forced to grant the colony its independence in 1962.

Recognition and reconcilliation

Algeria made 8 May an official day of commemoration in 2020. Some in France want the same – a move that would involve officially acknowledging France’s role in the killings. So far, that has not happened. 

“Algeria’s independence remains a trauma in the French public opinion,” historian Nils Andersson told RFI.

“There is an anti-Algerian feeling in France – the colonising country – and I think the role of political leaders is to have the courage to recognise the facts about colonialism, which is neither an act of contrition of repentance, but just a moral and truthful act.”

In 2005, France’s ambassador to Algeria called the massacre an “inexcusable tragedy”. A decade later, a French minister visited the massacre’s commemoration site.

This week, a group of left-wing MPs submitted a proposal to officially recognise the massacres as a “state crime perpetrated against an unarmed civilian population”.

The MPs’ visit and the proposed resolution come at a time of high tension between France and Algeria. Interior Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL radio on Tuesday that relations were currently “blocked”.

For the centrist Senator Raphaël Daubet, a member of the delegation, reopening dialogue with Algeria involves “the recognition of these massacres” that happened in Sétif, Guelma et Kherrata.

Traoré, known as “the King”, leads the Alternatives for Mali party and is part of the opposition coalition Jigiya Koura. He was arrested on 24 April and transferred to Dioïla prison, 160km from the capital. His trial is set for 12 June.

Traoré is charged with “undermining the credit of the state” and “spreading knowingly false news likely to disturb public order”.

The charges stem from an interview posted online on 22 April in which Traoré accused members of the National Transition Council – appointed by the junta – of enriching themselves at public expense.

He claimed they were receiving “billions” in salaries intended for elected MPs, while working “for their personal interest and not for the homeland”.

Traoré also questioned the legitimacy of the 2023 constitutional referendum and condemned the council’s silence over threats to ban political parties. “Not keeping your word is an insult to the honour of Malians,” he said during the interview.

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Widening crackdown

This is not Traoré’s first run-in with the authorities. Last year, he was jailed for more than five months along with 10 other political leaders after holding a meeting during a nationwide suspension of political activity.

In April, another member of his party was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 650,000 CFA francs after calling Mali’s military rulers “juntas” and urging resistance to what he called the “anarchic regime of Assimi Goïta”.

Goïta seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021. Last month, a government-backed national dialogue recommended naming him president for a renewable five-year term. The same forum also proposed dissolving all political parties – a move that has fuelled anger among opposition groups.

First major rally 

On Saturday, hundreds of activists defied threats and gathered in Bamako in the first major pro-democracy demonstration since the 2020 coup. Protesters met outside the Palais de la Culture after police blocked access to the venue, which had been occupied earlier by pro-military supporters.

“Any attempt to limit, suspend or dissolve political parties is a direct attack on the constitution and the sovereignty of the Malian people,” protest organisers said in a statement.

The following day, civic and political leaders held a press conference demanding a “rapid and credible return to constitutional order through the organisation of transparent, inclusive and peaceful elections”, said organiser Cheick Oumar Doumbia.

Police forced them to leave, citing risks of confrontation with junta supporters.

Opposition parties are now planning another rally in Bamako on 9 May. “We are taking it up a notch to demonstrate our capacity for mobilisation,” one party leader told local media.

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Rising alarm

Last week, Mali’s transitional government issued a decree in the Council of Ministers to repeal the law governing political parties. The move followed the conclusions of the national dialogue and has drawn warnings from rights groups.

“There is a real risk of increased tensions if political parties continue to face pressure,” Mamouni Soumano, a political analyst at Kurukanfuga University in Bamako, told the Associated Press.

The opposition coalition has called for the release of all political prisoners and a return to civilian rule by 31 December 2025.

Human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) have condemned what they describe as repeated attacks on basic freedoms during the transition period.

They say arrests, censorship and legal pressure are being used to silence dissent.

Mali’s military-led government has also cut ties with traditional Western partners and forged closer relations with Russia.

Geoengineers at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), could try to thicken the Arctic ice pack by injecting seawater into the frozen blocks, under the programme Exploring Options for Actively Cooling the Earth.

Another project could see them attempt to make clouds more reflective by pumping reflective particles into the upper reaches of the skies to limit solar radiation.

“Climate change, largely caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, could cause the global temperature to increase by several degrees by the end of the century, precipitating climate tipping points with serious consequences,” said the programme’s director Mark Symes.

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“The solution to this problem is to cease the burning of fossil fuels and to eliminate excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. However, lowering atmospheric greenhouse gas levels – even under the most aggressive scenarios – may not happen fast enough to prevent the onset of tipping points.”

Aria proposes small-scale, controlled, geographically confined outdoor experiments on approaches that might help reduce global temperatures, and could give mankind more time to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

“[The experiments] are not meant to be stepping stones to deployment,” Symes added. “The research conducted in this programme should allow us to provide critical – and currently missing – real-world data to scientists and society on what the options are for actively cooling the Earth, how such approaches might work, and what the consequences of their use might be, allowing better-informed assessments of their risks and benefits.”

Experiments

As well as thickening Arctic sea ice blocks to make them more reflective, projects which could lead to field experiments include marine cloud brightening (MCB) and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).

One proposed MCB experiment is to spray a fine mist of natural sea water into the atmosphere from a coastal location in the UK and then analyse whether this brightens clouds and increases their reflectivity.

An example of an SAI project is putting a small amount of natural mineral dust in a weather balloon and sending it high into the atmosphere to see how it responds in that environment.

Aria researchers say that no outdoor experiments will be conducted before the public has been consulted. And when they are held, they will be closely supervised and limited.

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Controversy

However, Aria’s planned projects have coincided with a burgeoning campaign for an international agreement not to use solar geoengineering.

“Conducting small-scale experiments risks normalising highly controversial theories and accelerating technological development, creating a a slippery slope toward full-scale deployment,” said Mary Church, geoengineering campaign manager at the Centre for International Environmental Law.

“Solar geoengineering is inherently unpredictable and risks breaking further an already broken climate system,” she added.

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As the 79th United Nations general assembly and New York Climate Week drew to a close last September, countries across Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific joined more than 500 academics and 2,000 civil society organisations to signal their support for bans on tampering with the atmosphere.

“Solar geoengineering deployment cannot be fairly governed globally and poses unacceptable risk if implemented as a future climate policy option,” reads an open letter calling for a ban on such experiments. 

“An international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering would be timely, feasible, and effective,” the letter added. “It would inhibit further normalisation and development of a risky and poorly understood set of technologies.”

“The UK government risks triggering a costly, dangerous and distracting race to develop technologies that should never be used,” Church echoed. “Even experimenting with these technologies could further destabilise an already tense geopolitical context.”

Global average temperatures in 2024 were 1.6C above pre-industrial levels, temporarily exceeding the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Current trajectories show the world passing 1.5C of long-term warming by the end of the early 2030s.

At stake with the election of a new pope is the direction of the Catholic Church, a 2,000-year-old institution with huge global influence but which is battling to adapt to the modern world, and to recover its reputation after the scandal of child sexual abuse by priests.

The process of this election – the conclave – however, is one element not in line for modernisation. Shrouded in secrecy, its name is derived from the Latin cum (with) and clavis (key) – meaning a “room that can be locked”.

This secrecy has seen the conclave enshrined in the popular imagination. The film Conclave, based on the bestselling novel by British author Robert Harris, picked up an Oscar, four BAFTAs and a Golden Globe during this year’s awards season.

‘Princes of the Church’

The 133 cardinals – the so-called “Princes of the Church” – who will vote will gather on Wednesday afternoon under the frescoed splendour of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.

A cardinal (from the Latin cardinalis or principal) is a high dignitary of the Catholic Church chosen by the pope to assist him in his government. They form the top echelon of the Catholic Church, with their scarlet robes representing the blood of Christ.

The creation of cardinals reflects the political views of the pontiff, who normally uses this power to shape the selection of his own successor. The current College of Cardinals is a diverse group, thanks to Pope Francis appointing figures from far-flung diocese, some gaining a cardinal for the first time – such as Brunei, Mongolia and South Sudan.

This diversity means some observers are predicting a protracted process. Vatican affairs specialist Marco Politi told French news agency AFP that, given the unknowns, this conclave could be “the most spectacular in 50 years”.

Oath of secrecy

During the conclave, the cardinals are forbidden from contacting the outside world. They will stay at the Santa Marta guesthouse – although prior to 1996 they slept on camp beds in the Apostolic Palace, which is connected to the Sistine Chapel.

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All windows in the conclave zone are darkened to guarantee privacy. Ahead of the vote, technicians deactivate all technological devices installed in recent years in the Sistine Chapel and sweep for secret recording devices.

The day before the conclave they will install “approximately 80 lead seals at all entrances to the perimeter”.

The extreme secrecy required extends to these technicians too, and all support staff – cleaners, cooks, doctors and nurses, drivers and elevator operators. All took an oath of secrecy on Monday. The punishment for breaking it? Automatic ex-communication.

Twelve technicians and maintenance craftspeople will remain inside the Sistine Chapel for the duration of the conclave, maintaining temperature, lighting and electrical systems, and assisting with ceremonial logistics such as operating the famous stove – which is now activated by remote control. 

The vote

On Wednesday, the day the conclave begins, the cardinal electors take part in a morning mass in St Peter’s Basilica. They will then gather in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace at 4:15pm and invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit in making their choice.

They proceed at 4:30pm to the Sistine Chapel, where the election will be held, and take an oath vowing secrecy and promising that, if elected, they will conduct the role faithfully.

The master of ceremonies gives the order extra omnes (“everybody out”) and all those not permitted to vote leave the chapel.

The masters of ceremonies then distribute ballots to the electors. Lots are drawn to select three to serve as “scrutineers”, three infirmarii to collect the votes of cardinals who fall ill and three “revisers” who check the ballot counting by the scrutineers.

Cardinals are given rectangular ballots inscribed with the words Eligo in Summum Pontificem (“I elect as supreme pontiff”), with a blank space underneath. They write down the name of their choice for future pope, preferably in handwriting which cannot be identified, and fold the ballot paper twice.

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Each cardinal takes turns to walk to the altar, carrying his vote in the air so that it can be clearly seen, and says aloud the following oath: “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one who before God I think should be elected.”

The electors place their folded paper on a plate, which is used to tip the ballots into a silver urn on the altar, in front of scrutineers. They then bow and return to their seats.

Once all ballots are collected, scrutineers shake the urn to mix the votes up, transfer them into a second container to check there are the same number of ballots as electors and begin counting them.

Two scrutineers note down the names while a third reads them aloud, piercing the ballots with a needle through the word Eligo and stringing them together. The revisers then double-check that the scrutineers have not made any mistakes.

If no one has secured two-thirds of the votes, there is no winner and the electors move straight on to a second round. There are two pairs of votes per day, morning and afternoon, until a new pope has been elected.

The ballots and any handwritten notes made by the cardinals are then destroyed, burnt in a stove in the chapel. It emits black smoke if no pope has been elected and white smoke if there is a new pontiff.

The smoke is turned black or white through the addition of chemicals – potassium perchlorate, anthracene (a component of coal tar) and sulfur to produce black smoke, or potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin to produce the white smoke.

If voting continues for three days without a winner, there is a day of prayer, reflection and dialogue. If after another seven ballots there is no winner, there is another day of pause.

If the cardinals reach a fourth pause with no result, they can agree to vote only on the two most popular candidates, with the winner requiring a clear majority.

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In 2013, the conclave lasted 27 hours, and in 2005 it was 26 hours. The shortest on record took place in 1503, when it took cardinals just 10 hours to elect Pope Pius III.

As for the longest, in the 13th century it took almost three years, beginning n 1268 – 1,006 days to be exact – to choose Pope Clement IV’s successor.

From late 1269 the cardinals allowed themselves to be locked in to try to reach a decision.

When they still hadn’t managed this by June 1270, frustrated locals tore the roof off in a bid to speed things along – inspired by a quip by an English cardinal that without the roof, the Holy Spirit could descend unhindered.

When a cardinal is elected pope, the masters of ceremonies and other non-electors are brought back into the Sistine Chapel and the cardinal dean asks the winner: “Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?”

As soon as he gives his consent, he becomes pope – and is free to celebrate, as John Paul II did in 1978, reportedly walking around pouring Champagne for the cardinals and singing Polish folk songs.

Controversies 

Conclaves have seen their share of controversy over the centuries. This year, United States President Donald Trump last week posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pope on his Truth Social platform, after joking that he would be his own first choice for the next pontiff, drawing the ire of the Church. 

The New York State Catholic Conference wrote in a post on X: “There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St Peter. Do not mock us.”

Last week, France’s President Emmanuel Macron was accused by Italian media of attempted interference in the conclave, after he held a series of meetings with cardinals and Church officials while in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral. 

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In 2013, so convinced were they of his success, upon sight of the famous white smoke signal the Italian bishops’ conference sent out a press release congratulating Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola – when Pope Francis had just been elected.

In the days leading up to the conclave, Italian newspapers openly promoted Scola as the next pope, appearing to have missed the warning contained in a traditional Italian saying that front-runners at a papal conclave are often disappointed: “He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal.”

In 1241, when the conclave was dragging on, the head of Rome’s government locked the cardinals into a dilapidated building and refused to clean the lavatories or provide doctors for those who fell ill.

According to Frederic Baumgartner in his Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections, the cardinals only reached a decision – electing Celestine IV – after one of them died and the Romans threatened to exhume his corpse and have it make decisions.

(with newswires)

The three-year expedition will take Plastic Odyssey around Africa, South East Asia and South America. 

Its current four-month mission in the Indian Ocean is part of a partnership programme led by the Indian Ocean Commission (COI) – an intergovernmental project involving France, Madagascar, the Seychelles, Comoros and Mauritius, with support from France’s development agency, the AFD.

“The main goal is to empower more local entrepreneurs and accelerate their plastic waste recycling programme,” Alaric de Beaudrap, stopover coordinator for Plastic Odyssey, told RFI.

For this, the Plastic Odyssey crew – mostly made up of engineers – holds an intensive three-day training session called “On-board laboratory”.

More than 25 Malagasy entrepreneurs have already applied for the programme, beginning on 30 April in the Tamatave harbour, 300 kilometres away from the capital Antananarivo.

Local engagement

One company Plastic Odyssey is in touch with is Andao, which makes school tables from recycled plastic bottle caps. 

“There is a huge problem of school furniture in Madagascar. They’re doing it locally at their own level. They would love to produce more of those recycled plastic tables for schools,” explains de Beaudrap.

Plastic Odyssey is a 40-metre vessel equipped with low-tech machines used to recycle plastic waste.

Once collected and processed, this recycled plastic can be used for building structures, irrigation for agriculture, flooring and furniture. 

The idea is to create local jobs with machines that can be built on-site. “All those machines are easy to operate and to maintain, and can be easily replicated,” explains de Beaudrap.

“We have been in more than 30 countries so far, where we stopped with the boat and we can exchange knowledge and good practices.”

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Plastic Odyssey also runs an education programme, with children aged between eight and 15 invited on board for a lesson on plastic pollution. “The main goal is to promote a plastic-free world to young people,” says de Beaudrap.

Waste mismanagement

According to a report published in 2020 by the COI, “it seems that 92 percent of waste is mismanaged in Madagascar,” says de Beaudrap, “and less than half of this plastic waste is collected”.

There are several illegal dumping sites on the Indian Ocean island, most of them near residential areas.

“We are not yet talking about recycling in Madagascar, only collecting,” he added. “There is an urgent need to prevent this waste from reaching the rivers and the sea because, in the end, this waste will pollute the Malagasy coastlines and ecosystems.”

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The second major component of the stopover in Madagascar is a five-day mission around the Sainte-Marie coastal area, during which the vessel will be made available to scientists from the oceanographic institution Ifremer and the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, as well as universities of the Comoros and Madagascar.

“Our vessel will allow them to carry out surveys and observations of micro and macro plastics off the coast, and also to study the drift of these plastics, and what we call the link between plastics and megafauna,” explained de Beaudrap.

“This scientific approach will provide a foundation for policymakers and research centres to better identify and understand the role of plastic pollution on ecosystems – as well as its sources.”

After Madagascar, Plastic Odyssey will sail to Seychelles and the Comoro Islands, reaching Kenya in August, before its expected return to France in April 2026.

“They are at the end of their strength. Jacques’s face is more and more marked by the detention – you can feel he is dying slowly in that cell,” Noémie Kohler told RFI. “Cécile and Jacques are increasingly desperate and are less and less optimistic.”

Kohler, 40, and Paris, who is in his seventies, were arrested on 7 May 2022 at the end of a tourist trip to Iran. They are accused of spying – charges they strongly deny.

They are being held in section 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison, an area reserved for political prisoners. They are the last known French citizens still detained in Iran and are considered “state hostages” by the French government.

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Conditions ‘equivalent to torture’

France’s foreign ministry says the couple are being held in conditions that “amount to torture under international law”.

They have no furniture and continue to sleep on the floor. The lights remain on 24 hours a day and they are allowed outdoors just two or three times a week, for no more than 30 minutes at a time.

Whether they are allowed out depends on prison guards and weather. Phone calls are rare, short and tightly monitored. The most recent, on 5 May, lasted just eight minutes.

“She told us she writes poems in her head,” Noémie said. “She repeats them every night so she doesn’t forget them, because after three years, she still has nothing to write with.”

Noémie also described the mental pressure her sister and Jacques are under.

“For several months they have been told that a verdict is imminent, that it will be extremely severe. They are given deadlines each time and nothing ever happens,” she said. “It’s psychological torture.”

A few months after their arrest, Iranian state television broadcast “confessions” by the pair, which France said were forced.

Their lawyers have still not been granted access to their case files. “Their right to a defence has been completely denied,” Noémie said. “We have no reliable information about the legal process.”

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Campaign for freedom

French President Emmanuel Macron marked the anniversary with a message on social media, saying France was working “tirelessly” to free them.

“I assure their families that our support is unwavering,” Macron posted on X.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also posted a video message describing Kohler and Paris as “hostages” and “victims of the Iranian regime”.

“They are kept in inhumane conditions that amount to torture,” Barrot added. He also urged French nationals not to travel to Iran.

France has said it will file a formal complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. While the move has been welcomed by the families, it is not expected to lead to a breakthrough in the short term.

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Diplomatic tensions

The case comes amid worsening ties between Paris and Tehran.

In February, an Iranian woman was arrested in France on terrorism-related charges. A Franco-Iranian influencer is also due to go on trial on similar accusations. France has threatened new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

The couple are among several Europeans held by Iran. Some European governments say these detentions are politically motivated.

One of the others still in prison is Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was sentenced to death in 2017 on spying charges his family says are false.

Dozens of rallies were planned across France on Wednesday to draw attention to Kohler and Paris’s case.

“They’ve become pawns in something far bigger than them,” Noémie said. “We just want them home.”

Wearing white vestments, Pope Leo entered the Sistine Chapel and blessed the ranks of cardinals as he approached the altar.

Addressing them, he said in English: “You have called me to carry the cross and to be blessed. I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me.”

It was the first time Pope Leo made public remarks in English. On Thursday night after his election he spoke in Italian and Spanish from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica.

“There are places or situations where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied,” he said.

“Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.”

Born Robert Francis Prevost on 14 September 1955 in Chicago, he became the 267th pope and the first American to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

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In taking the name Leo, he is the first to use the moniker since Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci in 1878 who was widely hailed for his stances on social reforms and was nicknamed the “Pope of the Workers”.

Pope Leo, who worked as a missionary in Peru, told the cardinals he deplored the settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent.

Echoing his predecessor, Pope Francis, he said people were turning to technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.

“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society,” he added.

On Sunday, Pope Leo will deliver his first noon blessing from the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica. 

Trajectory

Pope Leo succeeds Pope Francis, who died on 21 April at the age of 88 after 12 years as pontiff.

In 2014, Pope Francis sent Prevost to take over a complicated diocese in the country.

In 2023, he recalled him to Rome to be head of the Vatican’s powerful Dicastery for Bishops, which vets bishop nominations around the world and is one of the most important jobs in church governance.

Earlier this year, Pope Francis elevated Prevost into the senior ranks of cardinals, giving him prominence going into the conclave that few other cardinals had.

Since arriving in Rome, Prevost had kept a low public profile but was well-known to the men who count, and respected by those who worked with him. Significantly, he presided over one of the most revolutionary reforms Pope Francis made, when he added three women to the voting bloc that decides which bishop nominations to forward to the pope.

In a 2023 interview with Vatican News, the then-cardinal said the women had enriched the process and reaffirmed the need for the laity to have a greater role in the church.

Honour

The American president Donald Trump was on Thursday among the world leaders to send congratulations to the new pope.

Trump said the appointment was an honour for the United States. “We’re a little bit surprised and we’re happy,” Trump added.

Prevost has shared concerns about the American government’s policies on migration. In past social media posts, he passed on messages criticising justification of the administration’s mass deportation plans.

“He is continuing a lot of Pope Francis’ ministry,’’ said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, the chair of religious studies at Manhattan University in the Bronx.

But she also said his election could send a message to the Catholic Church in the US, which has been badly divided between conservatives and progressives.

“I think it is going to be exciting to see a different kind of American Catholicism in Rome,’’ Imperatori-Lee said.

The Kremlin is using its annual Victory Day parade – marking 80 years since the end of World War II – to whip up patriotism at home and project strength abroad as its troops fight in Ukraine.

More than 20 foreign dignitaries, including China’s President Xi Jinping, were in Red Square for the event, the fourth since Moscow launched a full-scale military assault on its neighbour in 2022.

“The whole country, society and people support the participants of the special military operation,” Putin said in an address to the parade, using Moscow’s preferred language for its Ukraine campaign.

Around 1,500 troops that had fought in Ukraine were among 11,000 marching on Red Square, state media reported.

“We are proud of their bravery and determination, of the fortitude that has always brought us only victory,” Putin said.

Ukraine has called the events in Russia a “parade of cynicism”.

Putin sat next to Xi in the stands as the parade got under way. He was also filmed shaking the hands of WWII veterans.

Since sending troops into Ukraine, Putin has frequently drawn parallels between Russia’s modern-day army and the Soviet soldiers who fought Nazi Germany.

“Russia has been and will remain an indestructible barrier against Nazism, Russophobia and anti-Semitism,” Putin said, echoing language regularly used to justify his three-year offensive on Ukraine.

Ukraine has dismissed Putin’s claims that he launched his offensive to “de-Nazify” the country as “incomprehensible”.

They have also been rejected by the West and independent experts.

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‘Proud’

Moscow has been adorned in red flags and signs reading “victory” for the occasion.

“The holiday makes us proud of our country,” said Vladimir, 40, who came with his pregnant wife and friends to see the military gear on display in the capital.

At a dinner in honour of visiting foreign leaders on the eve of the parade, Putin proposed a toast to “victory”.

Russia began its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, hoping to take the country in days, but has since become embroiled in a huge, bloody conflict that has killed tens of thousands.

Security has been tight in Moscow, where authorities have jammed mobile internet connections in the capital, citing the threat of Ukrainian attacks.

Putin has declared a unilateral three-day truce in Ukraine to mark the occasion.

Kyiv, which dismissed it as political theatrics, has accused Russia’s army of violating the order to halt fighting hundreds of times.

Kyiv reported strikes in the southern city of Kherson and the central Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, with two people wounded.

Authorities in western Russia’s Belgorod border region said a Ukrainian drone strike hit the city council building, adding that no one was injured.

Kyiv argues the parade has “nothing to do with the victory over Nazism” and that those marching on Red Square were “quite likely” implicit in crimes against Ukrainians.

The two most important guests this year are China’s Xi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Despite warnings and criticism from Brussels, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will also attend – the only leader from the European Union taking part.

Aleksandar Vucic, president of Serbia, a country with historically strong ties to Moscow, will also join in.

The day before the parade, Xi and Putin met in the Kremlin, where the two held talks for more than three hours and issued messages of defiance to the West.

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‘Great Patriotic War’

World War II is officially remembered in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War”, beginning with Germany’s surprise invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

The period between 1939 and 1941, when the Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany and invaded Poland, is glossed over in official history books.

The war had a devastating impact on the Soviet Union, resulting in more than 20 million civilian and military deaths.

Throughout his quarter-century in power, Putin has tapped into this national trauma, making May 9 Russia’s most important public holiday and championing his army as defenders against fascism.

Authorities banned criticism of the military days after the Ukraine offensive began, and have since charged thousands in the biggest domestic crackdown in Russia’s post-Soviet history.

In a symbolic show of support for Kyiv to coincide with the parade, Ukraine’s Western backers at a meeting in the Ukrainian city of Lviv are expected on Friday to sign off on the creation of a special tribunal to try Russia’s top leadership over its military offensive.

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

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

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s quiz: On 12 April I asked you a question about the drop in air pollution in Paris. That week, Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality, reported that between 2005 and 2024, levels in Paris of the two most harmful air pollutants – fine particles and nitrogen dioxide – fell by 55 percent and 50 percent respectively.

You were to re-read our article “Air pollution in Paris region ‘cut in half’ over the past 20 years” and send in the answer to this question: According to Airparif, what are the policies that led to the reduction in Paris’ pollution? What are some of the concrete steps that were taken?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Antoine Trouche, an engineer at Airparif, told France Inter radio that several concrete steps had made a difference.

These included ‘the Euro emissions standards, taxation of industrial pollutant emissions, and increased public transport and cycling infrastructure’.

He also pointed to ‘the replacement of diesel vehicles with petrol and electric vehicles.’”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India: “Suppose you find an old magical lamp which when rubbed a genie appears and tells you he will fulfill one wish. What would your wish be?”

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Malik Allah Bachaya Khokhar, the president of the Sungat Radio Listeners Club in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan. Malik is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Malik.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ramu Reddy, a member of the RFI Pariwar Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India, and RFI Listeners Club members Sardar Munir Akhter from Punjab, Pakistan, as well as Deekay Dimple from Assam, India.

Last but not least, RFI English listener Ataur Rahman Ranju, the president of the Alokito Manush Cai International Radio Listeners Club in Rangpur, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “Free Wheelin’” by Thierry Durbet and Laurent Thierry-Meig; “Arc en Ciel 3” by Philippe Bestion; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Un Nuit à Paris” by Kevin Godley and Lol Cream, performed by 10cc.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “France hosts summit to lure scientists threatened by US budget cuts”, which will help you with the answer.

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

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

Methane is the second biggest driver of global warming after carbon dioxide. It traps about 80 times more heat than CO2 over a 20-year period, but breaks down faster in the atmosphere.

“The latest data indicates that implementation on methane has continued to fall short of ambitions,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said on Wednesday.

Leaks and under-reporting

Most methane from the energy sector escapes through leaks in oil and gas infrastructure, or is deliberately released during equipment maintenance. But tracking these emissions remains difficult.

The IEA said emissions from fossil fuels are “around 80 percent higher than the total reported by governments” to the United Nations.

Its estimates are based on measured data where possible, rather than relying solely on national reporting, which is often based on industry estimates.

France falling short of climate targets as emissions dip slows

China had the highest energy-related methane emissions in 2024, mainly from coal. The United States was second, due to its oil and gas operations, with Russia in third place.

More than 25 satellites now monitor methane around the world, helping researchers detect large-scale leaks from space.

The IEA said Europe’s Sentinel 5 satellite, which only picks up the largest leaks, recorded more “super-emitting methane events” in 2024 than in any previous year. These massive plumes were spotted worldwide, with the largest in the US, Turkmenistan and Russia.

Abandoned oil and gas wells, along with old coal mines, were also named as major sources of methane leaking into the atmosphere.

Existing solutions

Experts say reducing methane from the energy sector is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to limit global heating.

“There’s no need for technological breakthroughs to deliver this,” said Tomás Bredariol, an energy and environment policy analyst at the IEA.

“Around 70 percent of methane emissions from the energy sector can be reduced with technologies that have been deployed in multiple places around the world very successfully.”

Solar overtakes coal in EU’s energy mix as renewables continue to rise

Despite this, only about 5 percent of global oil and gas production currently meets net-zero methane standards, the agency said.

If stronger action is taken now, the IEA says methane reductions could lower global temperatures by 0.1C by 2050. That is roughly equal to cutting all carbon emissions from heavy industry worldwide.

While agriculture remains the largest source of methane emissions from human activity, fossil fuels are widely considered the easiest sector to fix.

The intelligence agency – the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) – designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a right-wing extremist organisation last week, claiming it was attempting to undermine free, democratic order in Germany.

AfD supporters said the move was politically motivated, and party leaders filed a lawsuit against the label in Cologne.

In a statement, the party accused intelligence services of violating the constitution by trying to criminalise the AfD’s opinions and criticism of German immigration policy over the last decade.

“With our lawsuit, we are sending a clear signal against the abuse of state power to combat and exclude the opposition,” party co-leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel said.

Germany’s intelligence service moves against far-right AfD, sets off quarrel with US

Intelligence chiefs say they are targeting the party over its stance against refugees and migrants.

The pause while the judges adjudicate means the BfV agency cannot proceed with plans to use informants or deploy video and audio surveillance of the activities of the AfD.

“The intelligence service’s decision is a first important step that would help counter the accusation of right-wing extremism,” said Chrupalla and Weidel.

‘We have learnt from our history’

Formed in 2013, initially the AfD’s ire was focused on financial bailouts for struggling eurozone members.

Its criticism of a 2015 decision by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel to allow large numbers of asylum seekers into Germany helped make the party a significant political force.

The AfD came second in February’s parliamentary elections in Germany but has been excluded from the coalition government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz which formally took office on Tuesday.

Germany’s new govt orders border police to reject most asylum seekers

Less than a week into his term in office, Merz’s administration is facing scrutiny over the BfV’s move – from the government of the United States.

In a social media post, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, said: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.”

Germany’s Merz tells Trump US remains ‘indispensable’ friend

In his own post, US Vice-President JD Vance referred to the Cold War between the Soviet bloc and Western powers, writing: “The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it. The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment.”

Responding to the comments, the German foreign ministry said: “The [BfV]’s decision is the result of a thorough and independent investigation to protect our constitution and the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”

Geoengineers at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), could try to thicken the Arctic ice pack by injecting seawater into the frozen blocks, under the programme Exploring Options for Actively Cooling the Earth.

Another project could see them attempt to make clouds more reflective by pumping reflective particles into the upper reaches of the skies to limit solar radiation.

“Climate change, largely caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, could cause the global temperature to increase by several degrees by the end of the century, precipitating climate tipping points with serious consequences,” said the programme’s director Mark Symes.

Top scientists warn France will have to spend more to deal with climate change

“The solution to this problem is to cease the burning of fossil fuels and to eliminate excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. However, lowering atmospheric greenhouse gas levels – even under the most aggressive scenarios – may not happen fast enough to prevent the onset of tipping points.”

Aria proposes small-scale, controlled, geographically confined outdoor experiments on approaches that might help reduce global temperatures, and could give mankind more time to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

“[The experiments] are not meant to be stepping stones to deployment,” Symes added. “The research conducted in this programme should allow us to provide critical – and currently missing – real-world data to scientists and society on what the options are for actively cooling the Earth, how such approaches might work, and what the consequences of their use might be, allowing better-informed assessments of their risks and benefits.”

Experiments

As well as thickening Arctic sea ice blocks to make them more reflective, projects which could lead to field experiments include marine cloud brightening (MCB) and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI).

One proposed MCB experiment is to spray a fine mist of natural sea water into the atmosphere from a coastal location in the UK and then analyse whether this brightens clouds and increases their reflectivity.

An example of an SAI project is putting a small amount of natural mineral dust in a weather balloon and sending it high into the atmosphere to see how it responds in that environment.

Aria researchers say that no outdoor experiments will be conducted before the public has been consulted. And when they are held, they will be closely supervised and limited.

Climate-hit citizens launch legal challenge against French state

Controversy

However, Aria’s planned projects have coincided with a burgeoning campaign for an international agreement not to use solar geoengineering.

“Conducting small-scale experiments risks normalising highly controversial theories and accelerating technological development, creating a a slippery slope toward full-scale deployment,” said Mary Church, geoengineering campaign manager at the Centre for International Environmental Law.

“Solar geoengineering is inherently unpredictable and risks breaking further an already broken climate system,” she added.

‘Building trust’ key to solving climate crisis, Cop30 president tells RFI

As the 79th United Nations general assembly and New York Climate Week drew to a close last September, countries across Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific joined more than 500 academics and 2,000 civil society organisations to signal their support for bans on tampering with the atmosphere.

“Solar geoengineering deployment cannot be fairly governed globally and poses unacceptable risk if implemented as a future climate policy option,” reads an open letter calling for a ban on such experiments. 

“An international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering would be timely, feasible, and effective,” the letter added. “It would inhibit further normalisation and development of a risky and poorly understood set of technologies.”

“The UK government risks triggering a costly, dangerous and distracting race to develop technologies that should never be used,” Church echoed. “Even experimenting with these technologies could further destabilise an already tense geopolitical context.”

Global average temperatures in 2024 were 1.6C above pre-industrial levels, temporarily exceeding the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Current trajectories show the world passing 1.5C of long-term warming by the end of the early 2030s.

“No agreement was reached,” Valls told reporters on Thursday after a three-day “conclave” held in a secluded hotel away from the capital Nouméa failed to produce any white smoke.

The talks were aimed at reaching a compromise on defining New Caledonia’s political future.

The archipelago has been in political deadlock since the last referendum in 2021, boycotted by the pro-independence side, left the process of self-determination without a clear outcome.

Two proposals were examined during this last round of talks.

One, backed by Paris, involved continued sovereignty with France. The other, promoted by the anti-independence Loyalists, called for a federal system within the French Republic.

Neither plan won support from both sides. Valls said the Loyalists’ proposal “called into question, in our view, the unity and indivisibility of New Caledonia” by suggesting “a de facto partition plan”.

This deadlock has blocked progress on a key issue – the makeup of the electoral roll. That debate helped trigger deadly riots in May 2024, which left 14 people dead and caused more than two billion euros in damage.

Key dates in New Caledonia’s history

‘Disaster avoided’

Talks to resolve New Caledonia’s political future resumed in early 2025. This was Valls’ third visit to the territory this year, and the first time in months that both sides had sat at the same table.

The French government’s proposal included “dual nationality, French by right and New Caledonian,” and “the transfer and immediate delegation of sovereign powers”. That sparked anger from pro-independence groups, who saw it as a backdoor recognition of New Caledonia’s independence.

“Transfer of sovereign powers to New Caledonia was the main sticking point,” said Loyalist MP Nicolas Metzdorf.

“We remain committed to our proposal of a federated state with enhanced powers for the provinces,” he added.

Sonia Backès, another Loyalist leader, said she had “avoided disaster for New Caledonia,” stating that the lack of agreement “is not chaos”.

France warns of ‘chaos’ if New Caledonia independence deal not reached

Crucial vote head

New Caledonia is due to hold high-stakes provincial elections that will shape its next local government.

Originally planned for 2024, the elections were delayed due to last year’s unrest. They must now take place by 30 November 2025, following a ruling by France’s Council of State.

Since 2007, the electoral roll has excluded most people who moved to New Caledonia after November 1998 – the date of the Nouméa Accords between the French state and the territory.

Many Indigenous Kanaks oppose changing that rule, saying it would weaken their push for self-determination.

Despite the lack of agreement, Valls welcomed what he described as a respectful debate and said “points of convergence” had emerged. A monitoring committee will keep discussions going in the months ahead.

“I continue and will continue to work to prevent a return to violence,” Valls said. He called on all sides to “engage with the State for peace, dialogue, and reconstruction.”

Ever since US President Donald Trump started defunding and dismantling US scientific institutions, France has made a push to get scientists to move. In March the French minister in charge of research asked universities to fund programmes to attract American scientists. In 2017, after Trump first pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, Macron launched a recruitment drive aimed at climate scientists working in the US. Two of those grantees, Ben Sanderson and Philip Shulz, talk about the experience of leaving the US for France, and what the current environment is like for climate scientists today. (Listen @1’10)

With 87 percent of France considered a “medical desert”, lawmakers and the government are looking to tackle doctor shortages. But the proposals – to regulate when specialists can open their private practices and require health professionals to work two days a month in areas with chronic shortages – have met with strong opposition from GPs, trainee doctors and students. Yassine Bahr, vice-president of the French junior doctors union (ISNI), and Anna Boctor, president of France’s Jeunes Medecins (young doctors) union, talk about why the proposals won’t solve the problem and the sense of injustice at being held responsible for a situation that is not of their making. (Listen @20’20)

On 8 May 1945, during a celebration of the end of WWII in Europe in the Algerian city of Setif, French colonial authorities shot at Algerians holding pro-independence signs. The ensuing riots then spread to neighbouring cities where the authorities  unleashed a campaign of reprisals to crush the unrest – indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of Algerian men, women and children. France has yet to officially acknowledge its role in the massacres. (Listen @15’00)

Episode mixed by Cécile 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).

The Nazi surrender did not end World War II because the war against Japan continued in the Far East. However, it was a moment of celebration for the servicemen and women who had battled Adolf Hitler’s army, as well as for people across Europe who had been bombed, invaded and subjugated since the invasion of Poland in 1939.

When the surrender was announced, people poured into the streets of London, New York and Paris to celebrate in what the BBC described at the time as a “mood of thanksgiving”.

In France, the day is known as 8 mai 1945, and is a public holiday. Later on Thursday French President Emmanuel Macron was to preside over a wreath-laying ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.

The commemoration will also see a parade of veterans’ associations, and music performed by military bands from France, the UK, Canada, the US, Cameroon and Germany.

UK kicks off party to mark 80 years since end of WWII

When is VE Day?

While most Western countries celebrate the anniversary on 8 May, General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, actually accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany at 2:41am local time on 7 May in a ceremony at Reims, in eastern France.

Although the news had leaked by that evening, the official announcement was delayed until the following day. The United States, the United Kingdom and France were trying to work out differences with the Soviet Union, which felt the surrender did not recognise the sacrifices its troops had made in securing victory.

A revised surrender agreement was signed around midnight on 8 May in Berlin, satisfying Soviet concerns. Russia celebrates what it calls Victory Day on 9 May, as do many former Soviet states.

This year, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unilaterally ordered a three-day truce with Ukraine – which he called a “humanitarian” gesture – from Thursday, to coincide with Russia’s Victory Day parade on Friday. 

The Kremlin said the move would test Kyiv’s readiness for peace, but Ukraine has dismissed it as theatrics and instead called for a 30-day ceasefire. 

It was not clear whether either side was observing the ceasefire, even with world leaders – including China’s Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic – in Moscow for the Victory Day commemorations.

It appeared relatively quiet overnight, although Ukraine’s military said early on Thursday that Russian forces had launched air strikes in the eastern Sumy region. Kyiv did not report any damage or casualties.

The Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day on 5 May, marking the 80th anniversary of its liberation by Allied troops from Nazi occupation, after a brutal five-year occupation. Similarly, Italy celebrates what it too calls Liberation Day on 25 April.

The US has not historically celebrated VE Day, as the country remained at war with Japan for several months after the conflict came to an end in Europe. 

In Berlin, events on 8 May centre on commemoration of those who fought against Nazism as members of the German resistance.

The road to victory

By the time France fell to the Nazi Blitzkrieg on 25 June, 1940, Hitler’s forces controlled most of Europe and were threatening to invade Britain.

But the war in Europe began to turn in early 1942, when the Soviet Red Army defeated German forces attempting to take Moscow. Hitler suffered another crushing defeat in February 1943, when German forces surrendered at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Invading the Soviet Union was “”probably not Hitler’s best idea,” said Rob Citino, distinguished fellow at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans. “They were counterpunched in front of Moscow, and in a war [in which] the Germans had taken very few casualties up to now, they suddenly had added a million and they never recovered from it.”

Then in 1944 the Western Allies and the Soviet Union launched twin offensives that forced Germany to fight for survival on two fronts. The Allies began their march across Europe with the D-Day landings in northern France on June 6, 1944. Two weeks later, the Soviets began their push toward Berlin.

France pushes for Unesco status for D-Day beaches and Carcassonne fortresses

As 1944 turned to 1945, “victory [was] all but certain,” Citino said. “But something else is certain: there’s still a lot of soldiers, a lot of military personnel, on both sides who are going to die.” The Red Army alone lost around 3 million soldiers in 1945 – or about 70,000 a day – he estimated.

Soviet forces began their assault on Berlin on 16 April, 1945, while the Allies were still fighting their way across western Germany.

With the city in ruins and the Red Army advancing street by street, Hitler retreated to his bunker under the Reich Chancellery, where he died by suicide on 30 April.

The first surrender had come on April 29 at the Palace of Caserta, outside Naples, where British Field Marshal Harold Alexander accepted the surrender of German and Italian forces in Italy and western Austria. Five days later, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepted the surrender of German forces in northwestern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands at Luneberg Heath, south of Hamburg.

Finally, there was the unconditional surrender of all Nazi forces in Europe, which was signed first at Reims and again in Berlin.

A bittersweet celebration

“[VE Day] was just a big letting off of steam and a massive relief for so many people,” said Dan Ellin, a historian at the University of Lincoln in England. “But then, of course, for others, there wasn’t an awful lot to celebrate. For thousands of people, the victory was tinged with sadness because for them, their loved ones were not going to come home.”

The world also had to confront the reality of the Holocaust, after the advancing Allied armies had uncovered the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps where millions of Jews had been slaughtered.

Roma push France to recognise Holocaust-era genocide

Furthermore, VE Day did not bring with it the end of the war. The Japanese were still fighting ferociously to defend their home against any invasion, and many Allied soldiers expected that they would be deployed to the Far East as soon as the war in Europe ended.

“I bet you every single Allied soldier in Europe, after toasting victory in Europe, they sat down and said, ‘I’m going to Japan. This isn’t over yet’,” Citino said.

In the end, most were spared another fight when Japan surrendered on 2 August, after the US dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 214,000 people.

Voices of the veterans

This year’s VE Day events have taken on increased significance because they are likely to be the last major commemoration to include significant numbers of Second World War veterans.

With even the youngest of those men and women approaching their 100th birthdays, many have said they feel impelled to tell their stories and honour their fallen comrades.

Mervyn Kersh, who is 100, said VE Day should be a reminder to today’s leaders that they must stand up to bullies and despots, wherever they may be. “You can’t have peace without strength,” he said. “It’s no good just remembering. You’ve got to do something.”

Thousands of UK children write to WWII veterans ahead of VE Day

Renée Guette, 98, and 97-year-old Andrée Dupont both joined the French resistance in 1943, aged 16. Dupont became a liaison officer, transporting messages and weapons, using only her bicycle. Guette was a postal worker who smuggled ration coupons and messages to resistance fighters.

In April 1944, Dupont was arrested along with other members of her village’s resistance network, including her father and her aunt. “I was folding the laundry at around 10 at night. I heard knocking on the doors and knew what was happening right away,” she remembered.

Guette was caught four days later by a French agent of the Gestapo. “He told me, ‘So, a young girl from a good family who took a turn for the worse,'” Guette recalled. “And I told him that he hadn’t turned out any better. And he slapped me.”

The two teenagers met at a prison in Romainville close to Paris. They heard the news about D-Day, but the glimmer of hope it offered was soon crushed.

“We thought we were saved. But the Germans needed us to work in the war factories,” explained Guette. Both girls were transferred to the HASAG Leipzig sub-camp linked to the Buchenwald concentration camp. It held 5,000 women forced to manufacture weapons.

France, Germany to cooperate more closely on defence

By mid-April 1945, weeks before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender, the Nazis evacuated the Leipzig camp, and inmates began the so-called “death marches” – intended to keep concentration camp prisoners out of Allied hands.

Guette spoke of walking all day and night with bloody feet, surviving on rapeseed and potatoes. She recalled washing for the first time in months in the Elbe river – and a bullet whizzing past her left ear during fighting between German and American soldiers.

When victory in Europe was formally declared, the pair found themselves back in France. Guette headed home on the train, while Dupont went to Paris, where she found her mother. Her father eventually returned from the camps, but her aunt had been killed in the gas chambers.

Alan Kennett, 100, a British army mechanic who worked on Spitfire planes, landed in northern France on D-Day. He said he was proud to represent the veterans.

“I just remember those that didn’t come back. That’s the thing that sticks in my mind,” he said. “I’m lucky. I got out. There’s a lot that didn’t, believe me. Luck of the draw. It shouldn’t be forgotten.”

(with newswires)

It was not clear whether either side was observing the ceasefire, even with world leaders – including China’s Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Serbia‘s Aleksandar Vucic – in Moscow for commemorations of the end of World War II.

It appeared relatively quiet overnight, though Ukraine’s military said early Thursday that Russian forces had launched air strikes in the eastern Sumy region. Kyiv did not report any damage or casualties.

Putin unilaterally ordered the temporary truce to coincide with Moscow‘s Victory Day parade on Friday.

Ukraine never agreed to the proposal, has dismissed it as theatrics and called instead for a 30-day ceasefire.

US President Donald Trump has sought to end Moscow’s three-year military assault on Ukraine since his inauguration in January, but has failed to ease hostilities between the enemies.

Hours before Putin’s order was scheduled to enter force, Moscow and Kyiv staged aerial attacks, prompting airport closures in Russia and leaving at least two dead in Ukraine.

Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod airport in the west was closed for about one-and-a-half hours early Thursday “to ensure flight safety of civil aircraft”, according to a Federal Air Transport Agency spokesperson.

The Kremlin has said Russian forces will honour Putin’s order for the duration of the holiday period, but will respond “immediately” if attacked.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his call for a 30-day ceasefire in his evening address on Wednesday.

“We are not withdrawing this proposal, which could give diplomacy a chance. But the world is not seeing any response from Russia,” he said.

Push for direct talks

Putin announced the truce last month, calling it a “humanitarian” gesture, after pressure from the United States to halt Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional ceasefire in March.

Ukraine has said it does not believe Russia will adhere to the truce and accused Moscow of hundreds of violations during a previous, 30-hour ceasefire Putin ordered for Easter.

Russia, which launched a full-scale military offensive on Ukraine in 2022, fired over 100 drones and multiple ballistic missiles at its neighbour between late Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon, killing a mother and her son, Kyiv said.

The White House has become increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress towards a peace deal between the warring sides, despite Trump’s efforts.

US Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called on the two to enter direct talks.

‘Peaceful atmosphere’

Russia marks Victory Day with a grand parade of military equipment on Red Square and an address from Putin.

More than 20 world leaders were expected in Moscow for the May 9 parade.

“Our military and special services are taking all necessary measures to ensure that the celebration of the great victory takes place in a calm, stable and peaceful atmosphere,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

He also said authorities had jammed internet connections ahead of the parade, citing the threat from Ukraine.

“As long as guests are here, until May 10, we need to be ready for restrictions,” he added.

Russian forces occupy one-fifth of Ukraine, and this spring hit the country with a string of deadly attacks on civilian areas.

‘Nothing scares us’

Russians from outside Moscow visiting the heavily policed capital on Wednesday ahead of the parade appeared unfazed.

“We are from Rostov-on-Don. Nothing scares us,” said 22-year-old student Valeria Pavlova. The southern city serves as a command and logistics hub for the Ukraine offensive and has regularly been targeted.

“It’s much calmer here,” she added.

But scenes at airports in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities were more chaotic on Wednesday.

Ukraine launched a barrage of drones at Russia earlier in the day, forcing airports to halt traffic. Around 60,000 people’s flights were disrupted, according to Moscow.

Kyiv’s drone attacks disrupted about 350 flights Tuesday and Wednesday, Russia’s Association of Tour Operators said.

Social media videos showed people sleeping on the floor and airports with rows of over a dozen planes queuing on the tarmac.

Ukraine’s airspace has been forced to close since Russia launched its offensive in February 2022.

The French president said he had raised concerns over recent violence against the Druze and Alawite minorities.

“You must do everything to assure the protection of all Syrians without exception,” Macron told Sharaa, adding, “The crimes have profoundly shocked the friends of Syria.”

He also urged Sharaa to prosecute those responsible for the attacks.

More than 1,700 people were killed in March, mostly from Assad’s Alawite sect, during sectarian clashes that drew international condemnation.

Further unrest involving Druze fighters and claims of abuses by NGOs have cast doubt on the interim government’s ability to contain extremist violence.

Sharaa, a former Islamist rebel, has been criticised by some in France as a “jihadist-turned-politician”. His visit has sparked debate, but Macron defended the meeting, saying engagement was essential.

Why France and the Middle East have such a deep and lingering past

‘Gradual lifting of sanctions’ 

The French president said lifting sanctions on Syria could be possible if the new authorities managed to restore order.

He also said the United States should delay any plans to withdraw its troops.

Macron described Israeli airstrikes in Syria as counterproductive, including one that hit near the presidential palace in Damascus on Friday.

“As for bombings and incursions, I think it’s bad practice,” Macron said. “You don’t ensure your country’s security by violating the territorial integrity of your neighbours.”

Speaking at a joint press conference at the Elysée Palace, Sharaa confirmed that indirect talks with Israel were under way, using unnamed mediators.

He said the goal was “to try to contain the situation so it does not reach the point where it escapes the control of both sides.”

Sharaa also pushed back against European sanctions.

“There is no justification for maintaining European sanctions,” he said, arguing they were imposed on the previous regime because of its crimes.

Before the meeting with Macron, Sharaa held a private discussion with Farid al-Madhan, known as “Caesar” – a former Syrian military photographer who smuggled out tens of thousands of images showing torture and abuse under Assad.

Madhan revealed his identity in February in an interview with Al Jazeera. He fled Syria in 2013 with about 55,000 photos, including pictures of emaciated bodies and victims with their eyes gouged out.

(with newswires)

Leading 1-0 from the first leg in north London on 29 April, PSG extended their aggregate advantage to 2-0 after 27 minutes of the second leg at the Parc des Princes.

Spain international Fabian Ruiz thrashed home from the edge of the penalty area to calm the nerves of the hosts.

Midway through the second-half Vitinha fluffed a penalty that would have given PSG a 3-0 aggregate lead.

But minutes after his weak kick, substitute Ousmane Dembélé set up Achraf Hakimi for the strike that brought an explosion of joy from the PSG faithful.

As the home fans sang about their impending excursion to the final in Munich on 31 May, Mikel  Merino outmuscled PSG skipper Marquinhos on the left wing and drove towards the PSG penalty area.

His cross was deflected into the path of Bukayo Saka who rounded the PSG goalkeeper Gigi Donnarumma to halve the deficit on the night after 76 minutes.

Arsenal pushed for the goals to force extra-time but PSG held firm to seal a 3-1 aggregate success and second trip to the final in five years.

“I said from the first day that our goal was to work hard enough to be in a position to make history and that remains our goal,” said PSG boss Luis Enrique.

Progress

“This is a project that has evolved since last year, and I feel very comfortable here as a coach because I have the freedom and support from the president to build what we want, adapting to the market to put together a team that improves every day.”

PSG have already secured the French Super Cup and the Ligue 1 title this season. On 24 May, they take on Reims in the final of the Coupe de France before attempting to hoist European club football’s most prestigious for the first time trophy a week later.

“We believe in our coach and we believe in our talented, young, hungry players,” PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi told CBS Sports.

“They fight for the team. They die for the jersey. That’s the most important, for the city, for the club. There’s still one match to go. We are not done.”

Arsenal will return to domestic duties in the English Premier League this weekend to secure a berth in next season’s Champions League 

“Sometimes you have to lose a few in order to win and you have to overcome some of these setbacks and mentally grow as a person and as a player and as a group,” said Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice.

“We’re going through that at the moment, a few losses, in terms of losing out in the league and coming close in the Champions League in back-to-back years.

“PSG have gone through and we’re absolutely gutted but this doesn’t define us for sure.”

The three were hit in a side street near the Champs Elysées when a black saloon car ploughed into them.

Videos on social media showed several PSG fans chasing the vehicle into an adjacent road and eventually setting it alight after the occupants fled.

Police said they had launched an investigation. Nearly 50 people were arrested for vandalism and for carrying flares and fireworks.

More than 2,000 officers were deployed around PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris for the game.

Ruiz and Hakimi on target as PSG muzzle Arsenal to reach Champions League final

Leading 1-0 from the first leg in north London on 29 April, PSG extended their aggregate advantage when midfielder Fabian Luiz scored his first goal in the Champions League tournament.

Minutes after PSG midfielder Vitinha missed a penalty, Achraf Hakimi added PSG’s second.

Though Bukayo Saka halved the deficit for the visitors after 76 minutes, PSG held on for a 3-1 aggregate win and a place in the final on 31 May at the Allianz Arena in Munich against Inter Milan.

The final whistle brought an explosion of joy in scores of bars and cafes around the city as well as outside the Parc des Princes, where dozens of fans attempted to stage an impromptu party on the ring road passing near the stadium.

Police quickly broke up the festivities.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, with days of repeated gunfire along their border escalating into artillery shelling.

“We will avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs,” Sharif said, in an address to the nation.

India said it had destroyed nine “terrorist camps” in Pakistan in “focused, measured and non-escalatory” strikes, two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on tourists in the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir – a charge Pakistan denies.

At least 45 deaths have been reported from both sides of the border following Wednesday’s violence, including children.

Islamabad said 31 civilians were killed by Indian strikes and firing along the border.

New Delhi said 13 civilians and a soldier had been killed by Pakistani fire.

Pakistan’s military also said five Indian jets had been downed across the border, but New Delhi has not responded to the claims.

An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory.

‘Screamed’

The largest Indian strike was on an Islamic seminary near the Punjabi city of Bahawalpur, killing 13 people according to the Pakistan military.

Madasar Choudhary, 29, described how his sister saw two children killed in Poonch, on the Indian side of the frontier on Wednesday.

“She saw two children running out of her neighbour’s house and screamed for them to get back inside,” Choudhary said, narrating her account because she was too shocked to speak.

“But shrapnel got to the children – and they eventually died.”

Muhammad Riaz said he and his family had been made homeless after Indian strikes hit Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

India signs multi-billion-dollar deal with France for 26 Rafale jets

“There is no place to live,” he said. “There is no space at the house of our relatives. We are very upset, we have nowhere to go.”

On Wednesday night, Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry reported firing across the Line of Control – the de facto border in Kashmir – and said that the armed forces had been authorised to “respond in self-defence” at a “time, place and manner of its choosing”.

India’s army on Thursday morning reported firing “small arms and artillery guns” in multiple sites overnight, adding that its soldiers had “responded proportionately”, without giving further details.

India and Pakistan have fought multiple times since the violent end of British rule in 1947, when colonial officers drew straight-line borders on maps to partition the nations, dividing communities.

Muslim-majority Kashmir – claimed by both India and Pakistan – has been a repeated flashpoint.

‘No pushover’

India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the operation was New Delhi’s “right to respond” following an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir last month, when gunmen killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men.

New Delhi blamed the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba – a UN-designated terrorist organisation, and the nations traded days of threats and diplomatic measures.

India on Thursday braced for Pakistan’s threatened retaliation.

“Border districts on high alert,” The Hindu newspaper headline read, adding that “India must be prepared for escalatory action” by Pakistan.

In an editorial, the Indian Express wrote “there is no reason to believe that the Pakistan Army has been chastened by the Indian airstrikes”, adding that Indian military experts were “aware that Pakistan’s armed forces are no pushover”.

Diplomats and world leaders have pressured both countries to step back from the brink.

Rebel gods take centre stage in Kerala’s fight against inequality

“I want to see them stop,” US President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is slated to meet his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Thursday in New Delhi, days after visiting Pakistan, as Tehran seeks to mediate.

Analysts said they were fully expecting Pakistani military action to “save face” in a response to India.

“India’s limited objectives are met,” said Happymon Jacob, director of the New Delhi-based think tank Council for Strategic and Defence Research.

“Pakistan has a limited objective of ensuring that it carries out a retaliatory strike to save face domestically and internationally. So, that is likely to happen.”

Based on past conflicts, he believed it would “likely end in a few iterations of exchange of long-range gunfire or missiles into each other’s territory”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s quiz: On 12 April I asked you a question about the drop in air pollution in Paris. That week, Airparif, an independent group that tracks air quality, reported that between 2005 and 2024, levels in Paris of the two most harmful air pollutants – fine particles and nitrogen dioxide – fell by 55 percent and 50 percent respectively.

You were to re-read our article “Air pollution in Paris region ‘cut in half’ over the past 20 years” and send in the answer to this question: According to Airparif, what are the policies that led to the reduction in Paris’ pollution? What are some of the concrete steps that were taken?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Antoine Trouche, an engineer at Airparif, told France Inter radio that several concrete steps had made a difference.

These included ‘the Euro emissions standards, taxation of industrial pollutant emissions, and increased public transport and cycling infrastructure’.

He also pointed to ‘the replacement of diesel vehicles with petrol and electric vehicles.’”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Jayanta Chakrabarty from New Delhi, India: “Suppose you find an old magical lamp which when rubbed a genie appears and tells you he will fulfill one wish. What would your wish be?”

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Malik Allah Bachaya Khokhar, the president of the Sungat Radio Listeners Club in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan. Malik is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations on your double win, Malik.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ramu Reddy, a member of the RFI Pariwar Bandhu SWL Club in Chhattisgarh, India, and RFI Listeners Club members Sardar Munir Akhter from Punjab, Pakistan, as well as Deekay Dimple from Assam, India.

Last but not least, RFI English listener Ataur Rahman Ranju, the president of the Alokito Manush Cai International Radio Listeners Club in Rangpur, Bangladesh.

Congratulations, winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s programme:  “Free Wheelin’” by Thierry Durbet and Laurent Thierry-Meig; “Arc en Ciel 3” by Philippe Bestion; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Un Nuit à Paris” by Kevin Godley and Lol Cream, performed by 10cc.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “France hosts summit to lure scientists threatened by US budget cuts”, which will help you with the answer.

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

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

Relations have been turbulent since Donald Trump took office in January. Cooperation on trade, health, defence and diplomacy has suffered after several of Trump’s executive orders.

The US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner, but exports to America now face 30 percent tariffs.

On 7 February, Trump issued an executive order to resettle white South African refugees, saying the country’s leaders were doing “some terrible things, horrible things”.

US media say the first group of Afrikaner (white South Africans) “refugees” is due to arrive as from 12 May. South Africa expressed its “concerns” to the United States on 9 May and reiterated that “allegations of discrimination are unfounded”.

On 14 April, South Africa named former deputy Finance Minister Mcebesi Jonas as its special envoy to Washington after ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Rasool was “no longer welcome” in America, calling him “a race-baiting politician who hates America” and Trump.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump spoke on the phone on 24 April in what was described as a cordial exchange. Trump invited Ramaphosa to Washington and suggested he “bring the golfers over”.

South Africa unites against Trump as US freezes aid over land reform

RFI: Where are we at today with the relationship between South Africa and the United States?

Ronald Lamola: The relationship has always been dynamic and evolving, obviously with more challenges since the election of President Trump, particularly with the number of executive orders that are not based on any facts or truths.

In South Africa, the expropriation bills are aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past to ensure there is equitable distribution of all the resources of our country. This is done in line with the constitution, which has got sufficient safeguards against any arbitrary use of power by the executive or by the state.

It is in that context that we continue to engage with Washington because the relationship remains important. Washington is our strategic trading partner, the second biggest after China.

RFI: Is there more going on behind the scenes than we can see? Are relations improving despite the tensions?

Ronald Lamola: Indeed, there are still challenges, but we continue to engage at a diplomatic level.

International Court of Justice hears South Africa’s genocide case against Israel

RFI: Is South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice being used as a bargaining chip?

Ronald Lamola: No, it cannot be used as a bargaining chip. This is a matter of principle.

Our history is linked to that of Palestine and, as Nelson Mandela said, the struggle of South Africa is not complete until the Palestinian people are also free. There has been propaganda that Iran or Hamas is paying for these legal fees.

You can check the departmental websites where all reports are recorded. It is the South African government tax money that is paying for this case. There is no other hidden hand paying for the case.

RFI: Can you imagine a scenario where the United States might ask South Africa to drop the case against Israel in order to continue enjoying good relations with Washington?

Ronald Lamola: Unfortunately, I cannot imagine things that I don’t know.

RFI: What would South Africa’s position be if that were to happen?

Ronald Lamola: I don’t want to speculate about anything or any scenarios. We deal with what is in front of us.

As you are aware, in one of the executive orders, this issue of the case has been raised and, also in some of the bills that are before Congress. But this is a matter of principle. It’s based on the Genocide Convention. Principles cannot be negotiated.

RFI: Where does the case at the ICJ stand now?

Ronald Lamola: We are waiting for Israel to respond. As you are aware, we filed a memorial last year in June. The case has to take its normal course. The court must decide because the future of the world is dependent on certainty, on a rules-based international order, which is based on international law.

We have to ensure that international law is respected by all. The might cannot always be right.

RFI: South Africa says it will not cut ties with historic allies. President Ramaphosa said that South Africa will not be bullied. Is there a price to pay for standing by your principles?​​​​​​

Ronald Lamola: Nations must respect and abide by the rule of law. We are signatories to the Genocide Convention. We will respect and live by the UN Charter. Obviously, there will be pain that may come with it, but this is the pain we need to pay for the people of the world.

South Africa is a product of solidarity. We would not be free if it was not for the people of the world who suffered and stood in solidarity with us. So, we owe it to the people of the world to ensure that the UN Conventions and the UN Charter are protected and defended.

EU flags stronger partnership with South Africa with €4.7bn investment

RFI: The US is South Africa’s second largest trading partner. How can your country absorb the blow of 30 percent tariffs, if they go through by mid-July?

Obviously, it is going to be very difficult and damaging to our economy. We see it also as an opportunity for us to engage in bilateral agreements with the US that are mutually beneficial.

There are South African businesses invested in the US, and also US businesses invested in our country. About 601 companies from the US have invested in South Africa, responsible for more than 150,000 jobs in our country.

It is an important dynamic relationship, which has also brought a lot of technology in our country and improved our economy.

But, we also have to diversify markets. We are glad that the EU is opening its market to work with us and trade with us. We are also looking at other countries to trade with us.

We will, however, continue to engage with the US because we believe the relationship is mutually beneficial and we have to continue to nurture it for the benefit of our two nations.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity

Ever since US President Donald Trump started defunding and dismantling US scientific institutions, France has made a push to get scientists to move. In March the French minister in charge of research asked universities to fund programmes to attract American scientists. In 2017, after Trump first pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, Macron launched a recruitment drive aimed at climate scientists working in the US. Two of those grantees, Ben Sanderson and Philip Shulz, talk about the experience of leaving the US for France, and what the current environment is like for climate scientists today. (Listen @1’10)

With 87 percent of France considered a “medical desert”, lawmakers and the government are looking to tackle doctor shortages. But the proposals – to regulate when specialists can open their private practices and require health professionals to work two days a month in areas with chronic shortages – have met with strong opposition from GPs, trainee doctors and students. Yassine Bahr, vice-president of the French junior doctors union (ISNI), and Anna Boctor, president of France’s Jeunes Medecins (young doctors) union, talk about why the proposals won’t solve the problem and the sense of injustice at being held responsible for a situation that is not of their making. (Listen @20’20)

On 8 May 1945, during a celebration of the end of WWII in Europe in the Algerian city of Setif, French colonial authorities shot at Algerians holding pro-independence signs. The ensuing riots then spread to neighbouring cities where the authorities  unleashed a campaign of reprisals to crush the unrest – indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of Algerian men, women and children. France has yet to officially acknowledge its role in the massacres. (Listen @15’00)

Episode mixed by Cécile 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).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!

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

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

Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we’ll surprise you with!

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s quiz: On 3 April I asked you a question about Marine Le Pen, the president of the far-right French party the National Rally (RN). She, along with eight other RN Parliament members, was judged guilty of embezzling 4.4 million euros in European Union funds to pay France-based RN party staff who worked only for the RN and not on EU issues.

Le Pen and her fellow lawmakers have been banned from running for office for five years. This ban, which had previously been a rare sentence, has become commonplace since the Sapin 2 law was adopted in 2016, which made it the standard sentence for cases involving the embezzlement of public funds and was roundly supported by RN lawmakers – until now.

You were to re-read our article “RN leader Le Pen battles for political future after embezzlement conviction”, and send in the answer to this question: Aside from the ban on running for office, what else was included in Le Pen’s sentence?

The answer is, to quote our article: “Le Pen was also sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which will be served under an electronic bracelet, and a fine of 100,000 euros.”

In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by the late Muhammad Shamim who lived in Kerala State, India: “Would you rather be rich but not famous, or famous but not rich?”   

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

The winners are: RFI English listener Lata Akhter Jahan, the co-president of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh. Lata is also the winner of this week’s bonus question. Congratulations, Lata, on your double win.

Also on the list of lucky winners this week are RFI Listeners Club members Shaira Hosen Mo from Kishoreganj, Bangladesh; Nasyr Muhammad from Katsina State, Nigeria; John Yemi Sanday Turay from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and last but not least, Saleha, who is also 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:  “Les Jardins de L’Alhambra” by Gérard Torikian; “Stacatto” by René Aubry; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children’s Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer; “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, and “Aýa döndi” by Nuri Halmamedov and Mahtumkuli, performed by baritone Atageldi Garýagdyýew.

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

This week’s question … you must listen to the show to participate. After you’ve listened to the show, re-read our article “How French women won, and used, their right to vote in 1945”, which will help you with the answer.

You have until 2 June to enter this week’s quiz; the winners will be announced on the 5 June podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby

RFI – The Sound Kitchen

80, rue Camille Desmoulins

92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux

France

Click here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.

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

In the last three months, Trump has presented the world with “a ding-dong of measures and counter-measures,” as Nigerian finance analyst Gbolahan Olojede put it.

With such measures including increased tariffs on US imports from African nations (as elsewhere), this new regime has effectively called into question the future validity of preferential trade agreements with African states – such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows duty-free access, under strict conditions, to the US market for African goods.

“The reciprocal tariffs effectively nullify the preferences that sub-Saharan Africa countries enjoy under AGOA,” South Africa’s foreign and trade ministers said in a joint statement on 4 April.

Jon Marks, editorial director of energy consultancy and news service African Energy, echoed this climate of uncertainty: “With the Trump presidency lurching from policy to policy, no one knows where they are. And it’s very difficult to actually see order within this chaos.”

Africa braces for economic hit as Trump’s tariffs end US trade perks

He told RFI he expects long periods of stasis, in which nothing actually happens, when people have been expecting immediate action.

“That’s going to be, I think, devastating for markets, devastating for investment. The outlook really is grim,” he added.

Commodities

In 2024, US exports to Africa were worth $32.1 billion. The US imported $39.5 billion worth of goods from Africa, the bulk of these being commodities such as oil and gas, as well as rare minerals including lithium, copper and cobalt.

“The focus of the Trump administration is on critical minerals now, particularly in the [Democratic Republic of Congo], which is the Saudi Arabia of cobalt,” said Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of the China Global South Project news site.

The US is aiming to build non-Chinese supply chains for its military technology.

“The F-35s, supersonic fighter jets, need cobalt. When they look at critical minerals, they’re not looking at that for renewable energy. They’re looking at it specifically for weapons and for their defence infrastructure,” Olander explained.

Collateral damage

On 2 April, President Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs on US imports worldwide, declaring that the US “has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far” and calling this date a “Liberation Day” which will make “America wealthy again”.

Stock markets immediately plummeted as a result of his announcement.

On 9 April, Trump announced a 90-day pause – until mid-July – on these tariffs. Instead, a flat 10 percent rate will be applied on exports to the US.

The exception was China, whose goods face even higher tariffs – 145 percent on most Chinese goods. Beijing retaliated with 125 percent levies on US imports.

According to Olander, most African nations have so far been “insulated from the harsh impact of these tariffs” and from the consequences of what is, in effect, a trade war between two economic giants – China and the US.

“South Africa, which accounts for a considerable amount of Africa’s trade with the United States, is much more exposed to the effects of these tariffs than the rest of the continent,” he said.

Africa First

But what if Trump’s “America First” agenda was to be copied, asks Kelvin Lewis, editor of the Awoko newspaper in Sierra Leone.

“Just like Trump is saying America First, we should think Sierra Leone First,” he told RFI. “He is teaching everyone how to be patriotic. We have no reason to depend on other people, to go cap in hand begging, because we have enough natural resources to feed and house all 9 million of us Sierra Leoneans.”

He added: “If Africa says we close shop and we use our own resources for our benefit like Trump is telling Americans, I think the rest of the world would stand up and take notice.”

Meanwhile, Trump believes his imposition of these increased tariffs has succeeded in bringing countries to the negotiating table.

“I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are dying to make a deal. Please, please sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir,” Trump said on 8 April at a Republican Congress committee dinner in Washington.

New markets

Olander believes that the trade war instigated by Trump has resulted in more risks than opportunities for Africa’s vulnerable countries.

“But, there is a lot more activity now diplomatically between African countries and other non-US countries,” he added.

“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from Ethiopia was in Vietnam, as was Burundi’s president. There’s more engagement between Uganda and Indonesia, more trade activity and discussions between Brazil and Africa.”

Foreign ministers from the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) met in Rio de Janeiro on 28 April to coordinate their response to Trump’s trade policy.

However, securing markets for non-US exports is a challenging task. It took Kenya 10 years “of steady diplomacy” to get China to fund the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway to the Ugandan border, according to Olander.

Kenyan president visits China as country pivots away from the US

“Whether it’s in China, Indonesia, Brazil or elsewhere, it takes time. Exporting into developed G7 markets means facing an enormous number of hurdles, like agricultural restrictions,” he continued. “Then, in the global south, Angola is not going to sell bananas to Brazil, right?”

“Trump’s trade policies have actually been to depress the oil price,” said Marks. “The price has been under the psychologically low threshold of $70 a barrel.

He explains it is because of the demand destruction Trump’s policies have placed on global trading.

Demand destruction means that people are not investing, “ Marks said. “It’s really a period of wait-and-see.”

“This will affect prices very profoundly. One of the ironies is that although a lower dollar means that African economies should be able to export their goods for more money, a declining dollar amidst market uncertainties means that investors are not going to be rushing to come into Africa.”

With Trump’s administration wasting no time in rekindling the “America First” doctrine, this time with fewer diplomatic niceties, tensions over trade, diplomacy and the long-term stability of the transatlantic alliance quickly arose. 

From the imposition of sweeping tariffs on EU goods – 20 percent across the board, covering all exports from France and other member states – to a reduction in support for Ukraine, Trump’s early moves have sent a clear message: Washington’s priorities have shifted – and not in Europe’s favour.

Brussels’ response, while restrained, has been firm, and the sense that Europe can no longer rely fully on Washington is taking root.

Trump’s tariffs come into force, upending economic ties with Europe

Retreat, rather than reform

One of the most striking aspects of Trump’s second term so far is his rapid dismantling of traditional US diplomatic structures.

Former US diplomat William Jordan warns that the institutional capacity of American diplomacy is being hollowed out. “The notion of America First risks turning into America Alone,” he said.

“Everything that’s been happening since 20 January has largely demoralised and damaged the State Department.”

There has been an exodus of seasoned diplomats, alongside a wave of politically motivated “loyalty tests” handed out to charities, NGOs and United Nations agencies as part of the State Department’s review of foreign aid – asking them to declare whether they have worked with “entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any parties that espouses anti-American beliefs”.

European allies rally behind Ukraine after White House clash

The cumulative effect of this threat to the impartiality of America’s foreign service, Jordan notes, is a profound erosion of trust – not just within US institutions but among global partners.

“There are worries in the intelligence community that longstanding partners can no longer share sensitive information with the United States,” he added, raising concerns about the durability of intelligence alliances such as Five Eyes, comprising the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Trump’s decision to scale back overseas missions and USAID funding has also left vast vacuums of influence – particularly in Africa, where both China and Russia are stepping in to fill the void.

“It’s not just that it’s being done – it’s how it’s being done. Brutally. Recklessly. Slashing and burning institutions that have taken decades to build,” Jordan told RFI.

Amid this weakening of America’s traditional soft power influence, however, Jordan also cautions that the country’s soft power strategies have not always been effective, pointing to congressional inertia and overlapping funding mandates which have dulled strategic impact.

Still, he maintains, a haphazard retreat does more harm than reform.

A dressing-down in Munich

Europe’s discomfort was visible in February at the Munich Security Conference, where US Vice President JD Vance delivered a remarkable rebuke to European leaders, accusing them of wavering on democratic values.

The message was harsh, and the delivery even more so – an unprecedented public dressing-down in a diplomatic forum. The reaction in Munich embodied Europe’s growing unease.

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

“Certainly the language was something that you wouldn’t expect,” Mairéad McGuinness, the former EU Commissioner for Financial Stability told RFI.

“This is somebody coming to our house and telling us they don’t like how we run it. It’s not what you expect between friends and allies. Was it a surprise? Maybe not,” she added. “But it’s not normal.”

The incident underscored an increasingly assertive US posture under Trump 2.0, and the deepening fissures within the Western alliance, reflected in the new administration’s willingness to publicly challenge long-standing relationships.

European allies rally behind Ukraine after White House clash

‘Confidence in the US is eroding’

The EU has responded with a measured approach – “how the European Union tends to do its business,” according to McGuinness.

“What is problematic is trying to understand exactly what the US side wants,” she continued. “We’re hearing not just about tariffs, but also about food safety, financial regulation – areas where Europe leads globally.”

Rather than caving to pressure, the EU is showing signs of a more confident and coordinated strategic posture – in a similar vein to its response during the Covid-19 crisis and its rapid support for Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion.

One consequence of these shifting diplomatic sands has been a rise in investment in European defence, following the US decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine.

EU Commission chief calls for defence ‘surge’ in address to EU parliament

With EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announcing that, under the Rearm Europe plan announced by  on 6 March, EU member states can boost defence spending, European arms manufacturers are seizing the opportunity to compete against their US rivals.

While not a wholesale pivot away from the US, it signals a broader awareness that over-reliance on any single partner carries risks.

William Jordan put it bluntly: “Confidence in the US as a reliable partner is eroding, and not just in Europe.”

For him, this moment could present an opportunity for Europe to build a more independent and robust security architecture – one less vulnerable to the whims of any one American president.

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.