Author: France 24

While team sports will take centre stage Thursday on the eve of the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics, the first individual event of the 2024 Games – archery – will be drawing all eyes to the Invalides on the banks of the River Seine. French rugby star Antoine Dupont’s Les Bleus enter their second day of play as the French women’s football team led by Hervé Renard take to the field to fight for their first major title. And the Olympic Torch continues its journey around Paris with a stopover in the city’s northeast suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.

For the 2024 Olympics, Paris has become an open-air art gallery. In part three of our arts24 Olympic series, we talk to American artist Alison Saar, who was commissioned to create an Olympic sculpture at the foot of the famous Paris avenue, the Champs-Élysées. The work, entitled “The Salon”, shows a Black woman holding an olive branch and a golden flame – designed for the city of lights by an artist from the city that will host the next Games in 2028, Los Angeles.

Despite renewed communication efforts between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels, Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy to Yemen, warned the UN Security Council that growing international tensions have reached a “new and dangerous level,” and ongoing domestic disputes could plunge Yemen back into a “full-scale war”.

Revisiting the host cities of the Olympic Games – FRANCE 24 Since the creation of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, the…

Final preparations are under way as the French capital prepares to host the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Streets and bridges are closed, large areas are inaccessible, and security is tight as the city gears up for an unprecedented Opening Ceremony on Friday involving a 6-kilometre (4-mile) floating procession down the River Seine. 

For the Paris 2024 Olympics, dancer, choreographer and photographer Mathieu Forget invited athletes to dance with him for a series of jaw-dropping photographs in iconic cultural spots around France. Through these gravity-defying photos with athletes, the Frenchman has succeeded in making photography an Olympic art. In part two of our arts24 Olympic shows, Mathieu Forget speaks to Eve Jackson about working with fencing double world champion Enzo Lefort in Paris’s Petit Palais, playing handball in the Paris Modern Art Museum and the common values shared between sport and the arts.

Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a declaration in Beijing on ending a yearslong rift, Chinese state media said Tuesday, taking a step toward potentially resolving the deep divide between the sides as the war in Gaza rages on. Such declarations, of which there have been many, however, often “go nowhere” as the two parties disagree on key matters regarding the Gaza Strip, ABC Correspondent Jordana Miller told FRANCE 24.

FRANCE 24 speaks to Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay, who has just made history at the Tour de France after becoming the first Black African to win a stage as well as the green jersey for best sprinter. The 24-year-old rider, who will be competing in the road race at the Games, talks about how he hopes his success will spark change in the world of cycling. Also in this edition of Destination Paris, we follow Colombian race walker Eider Arévalo during his challenging journey to Paris 2024. The athlete has to overcome several injuries to clinch his spot at the Olympics.

As the US presidential election campaign is roiled by Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of the race against Donald Trump, we look at the role Silicon Valley has been playing in the contest so far. Long a bastion of liberal values, the US tech scene is seeing an increase in backers to Trump and the Republican Party. Michael Fertik, founder and managing partner of Heroic Ventures, tells FRANCE 24 how this has happened and why so many venture capitalists are drawn to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) message.  Source link

The day after US President Joe Biden announced his resignation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was en route to Washington on Monday to deliver an important address at a time of “great political uncertainty”, as the military ordered new evacuations in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis. The visit comes amid heightened tensions between the US and its long-standing ally, with fears of the Gaza war once again fuelling regional violence as Israel on Saturday attacked Yemen for the first time, in retaliation for a deadly drone strike on Tel Aviv by the Huthi rebels.  Source link