Author: France 24

Taiwan on Tuesday protested China’s boarding of a tourist boat, as tensions rise around the Kinmen archipelago, which lies a short distance off China’s coast but is controlled by Taiwan. Issued on: 20/02/2024 – 07:16 2 min Taiwanese media reported the King Xia, carrying 11 crew and 23 passengers, was boarded by the Chinese coast guard for about 32 minutes on Monday. Taiwan’s coast guard escorted the boat back to Kinmen, and it then continued its sight-seeing voyage.Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling told journalists at the legislature on Tuesday that the incident “hurt the feelings of our people, created…

Spain’s opposition conservative party retained control of Galicia, its traditional stronghold, in a tight regional election on Sunday, a boost for its under-fire leader. Issued on: 19/02/2024 – 00:32 3 min The Popular Party (PP) won 47.5 percent of the vote, giving it an absolute majority of 40 seats in the 75-seat regional parliament, official results with 95.5 percent of the vote counted showed.The party has governed Galicia since 2009, winning majorities in each of the last four elections under Alberto Nunez Feijoo who in 2022 left the rural northwestern region of some 2.7 million residents to become national party…

The High Court in London Tuesday will begin hearing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s final UK appeal against extradition to the United States to face trial over publishing secret military and diplomatic files. Issued on: 20/02/2024 – 03:59 2 min Washington wants the 52-year-old Australian citizen extradited after he was charged there multiple times between 2018 and 2020 in connection with WikiLeaks’ 2010 publication of files relating to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The long-running legal saga in Britain’s courts is now nearing a conclusion, after Assange lost successive rulings in recent years.If this week’s two-day bid to appeal –…

Back to homepage / Middle East Israel-Hamas war An alarming lack of food, surging malnutrition and the rampant spread of disease could spark an explosion in child deaths in Gaza, the United Nations warned Monday. The warning came as the UN Security Council is expected to vote on a Gaza ceasefire resolution, which the US has promised to veto. Read our liveblog for all the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war.  Issued on: 20/02/2024 – 03:38 1 min A Palestinian boy has his arm measured for malnutrition at a medical tent in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 14, 2024.…

A Haitian judge in charge the investigation into the 2021 assassination of the Caribbean nation’s last president has charged some fifty people, including his widow and a former prime minister, according to a document leaked to local media. Issued on: 20/02/2024 – 01:45 1 min  According to the 122-page document from Judge Walther Wesser Voltaire, made public by AyiboPost, the president’s widow Martine Moise conspired with former Prime Minister Claude Joseph to kill the president in order to replace him herself.Moise was shot dead when armed men broke into his Port-au-Prince bedroom on the night of July 7, 2021, a…

A host of European governments Monday summoned Russian diplomats following the prison death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.  Issued on: 19/02/2024 – 23:38 1 min  French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said during a visit to Argentina that Russia’s ambassador in Paris would be summoned, while Norway’s foreign ministry issued a statement that it was calling on its top Russian diplomat “for a talk” about Navalny’s death. “In the conversation, Norwegian views will be conveyed about Russian authorities’ responsibility for the death and for facilitating a transparent investigation,” Norway said, adding that the meeting had not yet taken place but would…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said his troops were facing complicated fighting along sections of the sprawling front line, with delays in Western military aid impacting his army. Issued on: 19/02/2024 – 22:12Modified: 19/02/2024 – 22:13 1 min Moscow’s forces are back on the offensive in eastern and southern Ukraine, and captured Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region, securing their first major gain since taking Bakhmut in May 2023.“The situation is extremely difficult in several parts of the front line, where Russian troops have concentrated maximum reserves,” Zelensky said.He was returning from a trip to brigades around the northeastern…

Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day. Issued on: 19/02/2024 – 21:23 1 min The record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The black hole powering this distant quasar is more than 17 billion times more immense than our sun, an Australian-led team reported Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.While the quasar resembles a mere dot in images, scientists envision a ferocious place.The rotating disk around the quasar’s black hole…

The situation for several thousand foreign doctors working in French hospitals has become more complicated since the end of the exemption scheme put into place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 1,900 of these practitioners have now lost their right to practise, a great loss for French hospitals already struggling with shortages of medical staff. FRANCE 24 spoke to some of them. Karima*’s last visit to the prefecture was a complete nightmare, as her residence permit was not renewed. “All I have is a receipt”, she says. This is despite the fact that she has been working as a paediatric orthopaedic…

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Monday pledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be held to account for Alexei Navalny’s death after he met the opposition leader and Kremlin foe’s widow. Issued on: 19/02/2024 – 10:02Modified: 19/02/2024 – 16:58 2 min Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison last week has shocked Russia’s exiled opposition which – along with the West – pointed the finger at the Kremlin. “We expressed the EU’s deepest condolences to Yulia Navalnaya. Vladimir Putin and his regime will be held accountable for the death of Alexei Navalny,” Josep Borrell wrote on X. We expressed the EU’s deepest condolences to…