Author: France 24

Hezbollah said it had launched rockets and weaponised drones at nine Israeli military sites on Thursday. A security source told Lebanon it was the largest attack waged by Hezbollah since October. The attacks were carried out in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Tuesday that killed a senior Hezbollah field commander. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded. Source link

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A cloud of uncertainty is hovering over Europe this June in the wake of the European elections. In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that President Emmanuel Macron immediately dissolved parliament and called for new elections. The possibility of seeing the far right take power in the country has led to turmoil in the markets. To better understand the economic impact of such a scenario, as well as its likelihood, we speak to Maria Demertzis, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank that specialises in European policy.  Source link

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Celebratory gunfire and gun battles sometimes sparked by minor feuds are a daily occurrence in Iraq where firearms possession remains widespread despite a period of relative calm. Saad Abbas was in his garden in Baghdad when he was jolted by a sharp, searing pain in his shoulder. “At first, I thought someone had hit me with a stone,” the 59-year-old said, before realising that a bullet had hit him. Source link

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Charles de Gaulle famously complained that governing a country with 246 kinds of cheese was all but impossible. Less known is what De Gaulle said just before that: “Only peril can bring the French together”. President Emmanuel Macron had peril on his mind when he stunned his compatriots by calling a snap national election after the far right routed his pro-European party in Sunday’s European elections. Macron is betting that faced with peril – the risk of being governed by the most extreme-right party since the Nazi-era Vichy government – French voters might put their grievances aside and unite against…

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In the UK’s general election, Steve is running to be MP for Brighton. In Wyoming in the United States, Vic is running to be mayor. Both of them are not in fact human, but created by artificial intelligence. On this week’s Tech 24, we interview AI Steve to find out what these robot candidates mean for democracy (and whether he’s going to turn us all into paperclips). We also look at the election campaigns that have recently come to a close in India and the EU, where the deluge of AI-generated disinformation that some were predicting did not come to pass. Source link

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In this edition of arts24, we met the author being called the best new writer of fiction in America. Nathan Hill’s first novel “The Nix” in 2016 was named one of the books of the year and optioned for a TV series with Meryl Streep. He’s in Paris as his second, “Wellness”, is being translated into French by publishing house Gallimard. It’s a look at modern love and marriage, society’s pursuit of health and happiness, and the stories we tell ourselves. Nathan Hill talks to Eve Jackson about being picked for Oprah Winfrey’s book club, modern-day marriage with mention of…

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