Author: France 24

The war in Gaza and simmering tensions across the Middle East are expected to dominate the Saudi-hosted special meeting of the World Economic Forum that begins in Riyadh on Sunday. Hamas will be there and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to join the summit on Monday, but there will be no Israeli participation, and the formal mediation process between Israel and Hamas will unfold elsewhere, officials said. Follow our live blog for the latest developments on the war in Gaza. Source link

Iraq’s parliament passed a bill on Saturday criminalising same-sex relations, which will receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights”. Source link

England completed a third straight Women’s Six Nations Grand Slam when they beat France in the closing game of the championship 42-21 in Bordeaux on Saturday. Source link

Hamas said it was studying on Saturday the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after a delegation from mediator Egypt reportedly arrived in Israel in a bid to jump-start stalled negotiations. This comes as witnesses in besieged Gaza reported fresh Israeli strikes overnight into Saturday around Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering. Read our live blog for all the latest developments.  Source link

Palestinian authorities are calling for the UN to investigate what they call “war crimes”, after reporting hundreds of bodies found in mass graves around hospitals in Gaza after Israeli raids. Some bodies were reported to have their hands tied or be stripped naked – although Israel calls the claims “baseless”, saying it “examined” bodies buried by Palestinians in a bid to locate its hostages. Vedika Bahl explains what we know so far in this edition of Truth or Fake. Source link

Four Yemeni workers were killed in a drone attack on an Emirati-owned gas complex in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan on Friday, local authorities said. Source link

Mayotte, a French island in the Indian Ocean, on Friday reported its first locally acquired cases of cholera, in addition to 10 imported cases detected over the past month. Source link

US President Joe Biden signed a law this week giving TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance nine to 12 months to sell the popular video-sharing app or face a ban. The company has vowed to fight this in the courts. How might the showdown play out, and what does it mean for TikTok users globally? FRANCE 24’s Tech Editor Peter O’Brien tells us more. Source link

Paris’s landmark museum is gearing up for the Olympics, with a special exhibition that takes visitors through the history of the Games. We hear more about a project for those who want to combine exercise and culture, as the Louvre launches a fitness circuit that puts participants among the artwork. Plus, a new show shines a light on the work of mysterious Dutch painter Jan van Eyck, and French land artist Saype gets his first solo show in Paris, after painting his immense frescoes on landscapes around the world. Source link

The Israeli army on Friday reported that two anti-tank missile strikes hit northern Israel from Lebanon overnight, adding that it had responded with artillery fire. The Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has stepped up attacks on Israeli military bases across the border in recent days. Read our liveblog to follow today’s developments in the Middle East. Source link