Author: France 24

Locals in the West Bank say Israeli forces shot and wounded at least one Palestinian and arrested three others on Friday, as they protected Israeli settlers marching through a number of villages. One focal point was the village of Tell, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. Israeli troops sealed off the village on Friday, after carrying out near-daily raids and arrests there since last weekend. Peter O’Brien has more.

The lengthy absence of Cameroon’s long-serving President Paul Biya, who has been in Switzerland since early June, has reignited debate about government inaction, in a country where many crave change. Biya has made frequent trips to Geneva over the years and has faced waves of speculation and rumours regarding his health. FRANCE 24’s Indira Ayuk tells us more from Yaoundé.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s senior advisor has resigned in protest over his boss’s plan to seek private investment for the World Cup football tournament. Carlos Cordeiro said such a move would “mortgage football’s future.”His voice part of a growing opposition – which includes a potential boycott by Europe’s football associations – as well as CONCACAF – the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Asian Football confederation. FIFA is currently offering 40 million dollars to each country that backs its project.

Since Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” came out, it has generated over $300 million…  and a growing conversation about what is missing compared to the original poem. But what is that exactly? In a scathing review published recently, classicist and translator of Homer’s epic, Emily Wilson, had much to say about what differed from the original poem. Her translation, published in 2017, was widely acclaimed, and Nolan said she was one of the inspirations for his film in early publicity. FRANCE 24 spoke to her a few days before she published her review, and here’s what she had to say.

Following reports of a drone attack on a US-owned gas storage vessel at Egypt’s Damietta port, a video purporting to show the incident began circulating online. The footage, however, is unrelated to the conflict in the Middle East. FRANCE 24 found that the footage instead shows a Ukrainian drone striking a Russian ship in the Black Sea.

UEFA has announced its opposition to Gianni Infantino’s plan to open the World Cup’s commercial rights to private investors. At an emergency meeting, UEFA’s 55 member associations unanimously voted to withdraw from the World Cup should the reform be adopted. 

Lifestyle magazine Monocle has just released its “Quality of Life survey”. The ranking isn’t based on hard data, but on how cities actually feel to live in. Securing the top spot is the Japanese capital Tokyo, followed by Copenhagen, Lisbon, Vienna and Sydney. Paris comes in at number eight. Monocle Editor Andrew Tuck tells us more about the ranking. 

Oliver Farry is pleased to welcome Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Climate Scientist and Professor at the Universities of Louvain and Liège in Belgium. Europe’s latest heatwave is further evidence of a structural transformation of the continent’s climate, warns Professor van Ypersele. His central argument rejects both fatalism and complacency. While insisting that humanity has not yet reached “the point of no return,” he argues that the world has entered a period of exceptional urgency in which the costs of delaying climate action are escalating rapidly. He develops three interconnected themes: extreme heat, wildfires and public health crises as manifestations of a…

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Thursday promised to “punish the aggressor today”, state media reported, following a heavy wave of overnight US air strikes on the Islamic Republic that killed at least three people, one of whom was a two-year-old child. The US military said it had struck dozens of Revolutionary Guard targets across the country, including military command centres and drone facilities. Follow our liveblog for all the latest updates.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino insisted member associations would not be forced to back the proposed commercial spin-off, as criticism from UEFA, CONCACAF, the Asian Football Confederation and European officials intensified.