Author: France 24

Former French justice minister Robert Badinter, who has died aged 95, saved many lives by dedicating his own to the fight against capital punishment, playing a pivotal role in banning the dreaded guillotine in 1981. Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 11:46Modified: 09/02/2024 – 12:32 3 min The soft-spoken attorney, who said he could not abide by a “killer justice system”, was widely vilified for pushing through legislation banning the death penalty at a time when most French people still supported the practice.He said later he had “never felt so lonely” in fighting capital punishment, which in France was carried out by…

Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 11:35Modified: 09/02/2024 – 11:50 02:43 An angry, emotional US President Joe Biden defended his mental competence Thursday in a rare evening address to Americans to respond to biting comments in a report released hours earlier on his mishandling of classified documents. Read more on related topics: Source link

Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 11:36 Pumping industrial emissions into the depths of the Earth’s crust – is it a silver bullet to pump the breaks on climate change? Norway says yes, as it prepares to launch the world’s first cross-border carbon storage facility. But will it cut global emissions? Or just greenwash and prolong the same old polluting practices? Carbon capture: The only hope for clean cement?Cement production accounts for about 6 percent of global emissions, so here at Heidelberg’s plant in Brevik they will be capturing 50 percent of the CO2 from their chimneys and store it instead of emitting…

Back to homepage / Shows / Perspective Issued on: 05/02/2024 – 12:06 09:25 PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24 Almost two years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of men have already been called up to fight and a new mobilisation bill is due to be debated by parliament this week. According to Anna Colin Lebedev, a senior lecturer at Paris Nanterre University and specialist in contemporary Ukrainian history, one of the major questions facing Ukrainian society today lies in the mechanics of the draft. She sees it as a balancing act between the need to provide able fighters to…

Former President Donald Trump won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday after he was the only major candidate to compete, winning his third straight state as he tries to secure his party’s nomination. Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 05:25Modified: 09/02/2024 – 07:03 3 min Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, his last major rival still in the race, skipped the caucuses even though they are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favouring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary on Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none…

Independent candidates linked to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan were outperforming expectations Friday in early tallies from Pakistan’s election, after a long delay in results added to accusations of poll rigging. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was barred from contesting Thursday’s election as a bloc, but unofficial tallies by local TV channels showed independent candidates — including dozens anointed by his party — leading in the most constituencies.By 9:00 am (0400 GMT) — more than 16 hours after polling stations closed — the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had announced just 13 National Assembly results.Five had gone to independent candidates…

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is expected to secure a fifth consecutive term in presidential elections on February 7. Anita Khachaturova, a specialist in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, talks to FRANCE 24 about what is at stake.  Issued on: 05/02/2024 – 18:07 3 min Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who has been at the helm of the country for more than 20 years after succeeding his father, is standing for re-election in the February 7 presidential election. The 62-year-old autocrat is hoping to secure a fifth consecutive term as leader of this small, hydrocarbon-rich Caucasus country. It would be his second seven-year term since the country’s 2016 constitutional reform, which extended…

Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the enclave, receives data from every hospital in the strip. Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every body arriving at a morgue. The ministry also collects from other sources including the Palestinian Red Crescent.The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”. The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN…

President Vladimir Putin said in an interview released Thursday with controversial right-wing US journalist Tucker Carlson that the West should understand it is “impossible” to defeat Russia in Ukraine. Issued on: 09/02/2024 – 01:39 2 min In a two-hour interview with the former Fox News host — coming just ahead of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — Putin also said a deal “can be reached” on imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.”Certain terms being discussed via special services channels,” he said, while insisting that the reporter is a spy — something the Journal and US government…

A long-awaited report cleared President Joe Biden of any wrongdoing in his mishandling of classified documents Thursday but dropped a political bombshell by painting the Democrat as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Issued on: 08/02/2024 – 23:55 3 min The report removed a legal cloud hanging over Biden as he seeks reelection in a contest expected to be against Donald Trump — who is facing a criminal trial for removing large amounts of secret documents after he lost the White House, then refusing to cooperate with investigators.However, in a shock for the Biden campaign, special counsel Robert…