Fresh headlines and publisher-supplied excerpts from Kenya, Africa and the world—collected in one transparent, attributed briefing.
Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction sparked housing protests in Spain, has died, Madrid's tenants' union said on Wednesday. Massive protests following Abascal's eviction spiralled into a political crisis, eventually leading Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to call a snap election.
Read briefingA seventh man was arrested Tuesday over a major incident last month at a British military airbase used by the United States to launch strikes on Iran, police said. The arrest came a day after President Donald Trump said the United States had withdrawn all B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford because of "threats" he believed were linked to Tehran. A 22-year-old British male was arrested in London "on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts", Britain's Counter-Terrorism Policing network said in a statement. Six men in their 20s have already been arrested and released on bail after three suspicious vans were stopped near the base in southwest England on September 27. FRANCE 24's Bénédicte Paviot reports from London.
Read briefingOne factor accelerating these student protest is social media, and its being boosted even more by artificial intelligence. Some French mayors have even called for social media platforms to be temporarily blocked for minors. Our colleauges at France 2 took a look at the impact
Read briefingA former German spy chief was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of espionage and treason, an embarrassing case at a time when the country is seeking to broaden the powers of its intelligence agencies. August Hanning, who ran Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency from 1998 to 2005, is accused of espionage, treason and working for foreign intelligence services, federal prosecutors said. FRANCE 24's Nick Holdsworth reports from Berlin.
Read briefingHundreds of thousands of students and their supporters took part in nationwide protests across France on Tuesday after weeks of student barricades protesting school conditions.
Read briefingA quarter of a million demonstrators took to the streets across France on Tuesday as unions and teachers joined high school students demanding better learning conditions in protests that later descended into sporadic clashes with security forces. A French policeman was on Tuesday charged with violence over the firing of a tear gas grenade last week at close range at a 14-year-old student during the high school protests that have shaken the country, the prosecutor said. Reporting from central Paris, FRANCE 24's Claire Paccalin says the protesters are adamant that "this is not it, this movement will continue, we want concrete actions from the government".
Read briefingRohan Rane, an Indian national who came to France to study before becoming a fitness coach, went on trial on Monday behind closed doors in Paris, on charges of torture and acts of barbarity against minors. Investigators say he is the leader of a neo-Nazi child exploitation ring that ran its operations via messaging platform Discord.
Read briefingFrance’s student protests have become the target of a wave of false and misleading videos shared by far-right figures, including Alex Jones and Tommy Robinson. Old footage and unrelated videos have been shared to portray the demonstrations as evidence of an “anti-white” or Islamist uprising linked to uncontrolled immigration. The protests are over school conditions, including large class sizes, teacher shortages and poor facilities, not immigration. Vedika Bahl fact-checks in Truth or Fake.
Read briefingA 15-year-old lost a hand on Monday picking up a police grenade amid nationwide school protests demanding better funding and classroom conditions. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Mark Owen, Ariane Bogain, Senior Lecturer in French Politics at Northumbria University, says that "there is a definite issue with violence and we need to ask why there is this unidimensional reaction which is aggressive, which is riot police, which is repressive".
Read briefingSpanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday called an early election for November 29, aiming to increase his parliamentary support after lawmakers last week rejected proposals to address a housing crisis that has drawn nationwide protests. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Mark Owen, Javier Carbonell, Policy Analyst at the European Policy Centre, explains that Sanchez has chosen "the best moment in a sea of troubles" to call snap elections as he is likely to capitalise on the mobilisation of left-wing voters during the housing protests.
Read briefingMoscow on Monday downplayed reports that a laboratory technician had died of plague, stressing that post-mortem tests had not detected the disease, while Washington said it was closely monitoring the situation. Reports on Friday that plague had killed a 28-year-old woman named Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region, sparked alarm. FRANCE 24's August Hakansson reports.
Read briefingFrance 24's Gavin Lee speaks to Brazil analyst Henrique Tavares Furtado about how Flavio Bolsonaro is pledging to reshape the country, and asks: who is the man behind the political persona?
Read briefingBrazilians began casting their votes on Sunday in a closely watch presidential election pitting incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Nearly 160 million voters will also pick lawmakers, senators and governors in an election that will determine whether Latin America's biggest nation follows a regional swing to the right championed by US President Donald Trump. France24 International affairs commentator Douglas Herbert shares further insights.
Read briefingBelgium's Olympic road racing champion Remco Evenepoel took the European championship title on Sunday after outsprinting Italy's Giulio Ciccone in a tight photo finish, just weeks after narrowly missing out on the world championship crown.
Read briefingThe woman who alleged that she was drugged and raped by seven male students at a Cornell University fraternity house has been the target of threats, her lawyer told CNN on Sunday. Cornell's president earlier voiced support for an external review of the Ivy League institution facing widespread outcry over its handling of the case.
Read briefingGerman Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Ukraine on Sunday to show solidarity after Russian attacks on Kyiv infrastructure, including three bridges. Last month, Germany’s foreign minister called for de-escalation during talks with his Russian counterpart at the UN, drawing criticism from Sergei Lavrov, who urged Berlin to stop arming Ukraine. On Saturday, Moscow called on foreign nationals and diplomats to leave Ukraine. Shirli Sitbon reports.
Read briefingLatvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs' pro-Ukraine and pro-Europe party was seen winning a parliamentary election on Saturday by an unexpectedly wide margin, exit polls showed, even as projected results for other coalition parties suggested the centrist PM would have to form a new ruling coalition.
Read briefingBrazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his main challenger Flavio Bolsonaro wrapped up their campaigns on Saturday in the powerhouse state of Sao Paulo, where a fifth of the nation's vote is based, seeking to rally supporters and convince the undecided on the eve of Sunday's nail-biter election.
Read briefingThe Bronze Horseman, the iconic equestrian statue in Senate Square in St Petersburg, was commissioned by Catherine the Great in honor of Peter the Great, the city's founder. The pedestal of the statue bears a laconic dedication, "To Peter the First, Catherine the Second, 1782". Does Putin want to be the third, Vladimir the Great? And is that ambition, expansion at any cost, the real reason behind the war in Ukraine? According to Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, "Putin only cares about what will be written about him in history books."
Read briefingThe head of Tennessee's prison system has resigned in the first major shake-up since the stunning failed execution of Christa Pike, who is in critical condition after surviving two lethal injections. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who previously denied Pike clemency, has halted further executions through the rest of the year while a review is conducted.
Read briefingFrance’s decision to share defence documents with the Italian judiciary has raised hopes of a breakthrough in investigations into the 1980 crash of a passenger jet near the island of Ustica, which a former Italian president claimed was mistakenly shot down by a French fighter jet. Sceptics caution that the files are unlikely to shed light on one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries, let alone reveal a culprit.
Read briefingFirst, Ethiopia and Eritrea have severed ties and now with tensions spreading across the region, the African Union is urging all sides to show restraint. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's army is advancing toward the Tigrayan capital as fighting intensifies and new explosions rock Addis Ababa. Then, from boardrooms to cocoa fields, a growing number of urban Ivorians are turning to agriculture. On weekends, civil servants, entrepreneurs and traders leave Abidjan behind to tend farms in the countryside, seeking extra income. But running a plantation from afar comes with challenges. And, Senegal is counting down to a historic moment. In a few weeks, Dakar will host the 2026 Youth Olympic Games: the first Olympic event ever staged in Africa. But the stakes go far beyond sport. We speak to Senegal’s Minister of Sports, Djirèye Clotilde Coly.
Read briefingIn recent months, the eastern Central African Republic has been hit by several attacks attributed to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan militia infamous for its massacres and mass abductions of children in the 1990s and 2000s. The group's leader, Joseph Kony, wanted by the International Criminal Court for more than 20 years, remains at large. FRANCE 24 spoke to Leonie von Braun, the ICC’s lead investigator on the Kony case, about the group's resurgence.
Read briefingIt's been 18 days since we first reported on isolated cases of schools protests at a high school in Rennes in Brittany, in Caen in Normandy and Villeneueve d'Asque on the suburbs of Lille. The complaints were similar in theme, overloaded timetables, staffing problems, poor facilities. It spread to Saint Denis and Creteil on the outskirts of Paris days later, one interview with the students was sen 1.4 million times on TikTok. It gathered pace, and morphed into what we've seen throughout the week, hundreds of protests, some peaceful, some with deeply distressing scenes, beyond the make shift barricades, a school in Nantes set off fire, firefighters forced out of the vehicle in Marseille and the fire engine set alight, scroll your socials itt's hard to miss some of the uglier scenes, a female police officer being attacked on the ground as youths shouted kill her. Where is it heading, and what has it become? Urban violence says the government, accusing agitators linked to the hard left exploiting geenuine concerns for political ends ahead of the election. Which La France Insoumise denies saying they favour no violent means of action. Today in Spotlight, we discuss this with Jean Remi Girard, a teacher in Asnieres in the north of Paris, and the President of the National Union des Lycees and Colleges, covering education workers from primary schools to college, 7 until 18.
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