Author: France 24

Award-winning ⁠Korean director Park ​Chan-wook will preside over the ​jury of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, the organisers said on Thursday (February 26).

The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region and President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached. FRANCE 24’s Shirli Sitbon tells us more.

Paris Saint-Germain survived a tense night against Monaco on Wednesday, drawing the second leg but advancing on aggregate after playing much of the match against 10 men. Late drama and a red card shifted momentum as the holders did just enough to secure their place in the Champions League last 16.

In his State of the Union address, US President Donald Trump sought to reassure Americans that the economy is doing well ahead of key midterm elections. Also in this edition: the Pentagon tells Anthropic it has until Friday to loosen AI safeguards, or lose its $200 million contract. Plus the Louvre’s president resigns after a series of crises and what auditors consider to be a mismanagement of funds.

In this edition of our film show, critic Emma Jones talks to Eve Jackson about the latest film releases, including “The History of Sound” from director Oliver Hermanus. It stars Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor as two men who fall in love in the shadow of World War I. The film premiered in competition at Cannes to lukewarm reviews, but Emma argues its quiet, repressed portrayal of a gay relationship shaped by its era is exactly what gives it emotional force.

Thousands of women and children related to suspected members of the jihadist Islamic State group escaped from al-Hol detention camp last month, Syria’s interior ministry confirmed Wednesday, after Kurdish forces responsible for overseeing the facility pulled out.

Bodo/Glimt made history by knocking 2025 finalist Inter Milan out of Champions League.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is visiting China on a two-day trip starting Wednesday.  He’s the latest in a string of Western leaders to try and seek new partnerships with the Asian giant in recent weeks, amid Donald Trump’s trade war against the rest of the world.  It’s a delicate balancing act for the German leader as the country’s industry has been squeezed by competition from China. But first, we take stock of what four years of war have done to Ukraine’s economy. 

In this episode of arts24, we mark four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with powerful films from the frontlines. The BAFTA-winning documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” exposes how Russian schools have been used for propaganda, while Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov captures frontline courage in “2000 Meters to Andriivka”, which follows soldiers during the 2023 counteroffensive.

Students have a right to protest but must “understand the red lines”, Iran’s government spokeswoman said Tuesday ( February 24), in the first official reaction to renewed anti-government rallies on campuses. Students rallied at the start of a new semester on Saturday, following on from nationwide protests in January that sparked a deadly crackdown from the authorities.