Author: France 24

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had testified in an ongoing investigation into whether his aides received payments from Qatar. He calls the investigation a witch hunt. However, political tension in Israel is rising, leading to growing anger towards the leader. Solange Mougin reports.

This week, Marjorie Hache chats to two up-and-coming musical outfits: Naya Mö, who comes from Bordeaux and has just released an EP, “Dealing With Ghosts”, full of layered lo-fi indie; and Oracle Sisters, a trio who formed in Paris but hail from Denmark, Finland and Northern Ireland. They have just released their second mystical album “Divinations”, full of psych-tinted folk. We also take a look at Elton John’s collaborative album with Brandi Carlile, “Who Believes In Angels?” 

In this edition, we find out why France is destroying its old stock of donor sperm, despite long waiting lists for help conceiving a child through IVF and other fertility treatments. Under the nation’s latest bioethics law, anonymous sperm donations are no longer allowed. We find out why and how the need for such donations has jumped.

The USGS has warned that the final death toll from the magnitude 7.7 quake in Myanmar could top 100,000 and economic losses may exceed the country’s GDP.  Since the 2021 coup, the nation of 51 million people has been facing an unprecedented “polycrisis” marked by economic collapse, civil war, climate hazards and deepening poverty.  Plus, France’s competition watchdog has imposed a 150 million euro fine on Apple over its App Tracking Transparency privacy feature. 

A top Hamas official on Monday called on “anyone who can bear arms” to rise up against US President Donald Trump’s plan to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a day after Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu said he would let the militant group’s leaders leave the war-ravaged enclave if they lay down their weapons.

Emmy-nominated actor and 1960s heartthrob Richard Chamberlain, who rocketed to fame in the TV medical drama “Dr. Kildare” and starred in the mini-series “Shogun” and “The Thorn Birds”, has died at the age of 90, publicist Harlan Boll said.

Fondly known as Big George, Foreman dropped out of school as a teenager and went on to become an Olympic boxing gold medalist and later heavyweight champion after defeating Joe Frazier. He lost the title to Muhammad Ali in boxing’s iconic 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa, DR Congo.

China’s BYD automaker surpassed US rival Tesla for the first time in 2024 to become the world’s leading manufacturer of electric cars, an achievement that exceeded even the expectations of the brand’s CEO Wang Chuanfu, who predicted it would outsell its fiercest competitor sometime this year. For Elon Musk, it’s a hard pill to swallow.

After nearly a month-long delay, the composition of Syria’s new government has finally been revealed and sworn in. This new government will replace the interim administration established following Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power, marking the first official government of the country’s five-year transitional period. The 23-member cabinet is religiously and ethnically diverse, though it is largely dominated by close allies of interim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa. This Sunday also marks Syria’s first Eid al-Fitr holiday since the end of over half a century of Assad family rule. Vedika Ba-hel reports on how the nation plans to celebrate.

Actor Gérard Depardieu arrived in a Paris court on Monday for his trial over alleged sexual assaults on a film set, a case placing one of France’s best-known movie stars at the heart of the country’s broader reckoning over sexual violence.