Author: Frank Deux

In an interview with FRANCE 24 in Ankara, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed his country’s position in the wake of the ouster of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Fidan claimed that Turkey played no role in the Syrian rebel group HTS’s ouster of the Assad regime. He also said Turkey’s interests are with the Syrian people, and that Ankara does not support foreign troops remaining in Syria, be they Russian or American soldiers. 'We cannot characterise what happened in Syria as Turkey's doing': Turkish FM Fidan

Paty was killed near Paris on October 16, 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police.

The French Police had to pander to public opinion, and echoes of the French revolution still ring through Court in Paris. In a case of such global media exposure, the French had to deliver prosecutions. The killer was already dead, so they had to find some other perpetrators. 

Gisèle Pelicot, Avignon, December 19, 2024. MANON CRUZ/REUTERS These are just four moments in one woman’s life. Four moments in just four years. The shock of the first day, the long, lonely journey, the decision to face the worst publicly, and the final verdict, after which Gisèle Pelicot’s soothed, confident voice spoke publicly outside the courtroom. Four moments that marked the journey of a woman who has now become a feminist hero around the world. November 2, 2020: Shock That morning, Gisèle Pelicot and her husband were summoned to the police station in Carpentras, southern France. Two months earlier, Dominique…

“What did he say? What did he say? [¿Qué ha dicho?]”, PP deputy Guillermo Mariscal asked this Thursday insistently to the journalists who were still surrounding the Junts spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, just when she had finished speaking in the Congress hallway. “That they are going to defend investments in Tarragona,” they responded, because that was the only thing Nogueras had said, but from which it was clear that Junts was going to vote that same morning alongside the PP to knock down the tax on large energy companies. “That’s it!”, celebrated Mariscal, the architect of that amendment negotiated with Carles…

The judicial gateway does not stop any investigation and the evidence against those investigated is growing. Read The black week of the PSOE pushes it to months of bleeding

In tonight’s edition, more than 700 people have been killed in El-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur state since May, according to the UN. Also, France began withdrawing soldiers from Chad. And we’re just a few days away before Christmas, Chef Sonia Marty Sokouri is the most Parisian of the African cooks, and she will share with us her gourmet tips.  Over 700 killed in siege of Sudan's El-Fasher

Hours to go before a midnight government shutdown, the House approved a new plan late Friday from Speaker Mike Johnson that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, but drops president-elect Donald Trump’s demands for a debt limit increase into the new year. The bill was approved 366-34, and now goes to the Senate, for expected quick passage. “We’re excited about this outcome,” Johnson said afterward, adding he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”It was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic…

France began withdrawing soldiers from Chad on Friday, Chad’s ministry of the armed forces said, after N’Djamena last month abruptly ended military cooperation with the former colonial power. A contingent of 120 soldiers departed for France from a military airport in the capital, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook, 10 days after French fighter aircraft left the Sahelian country for good. Chad had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa and its last foothold in the wider Sahel region after the forced withdrawal of its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the wake…

In profile, he looks a bit like Emmanuel Macron. Same antique straight nose, same height, same look. His official title: “Special envoy for Libya.” Hardly anyone knows his name. Paul Soler, 45, a former special forces soldier, is one of the most secretive advisors at the Elysée, where he is hardly ever present, busy traveling as he is. In truth, he is much more than that: a sort of personal diplomat to the president. His missions stretch from North Africa to the Sahel region of West Africa, but also as far as Ukraine and Russia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Central African…

The constant pilgrimage to the Soria Lottery administrations means queues in front of the counter and, with them, extracts of delicious conversations for Christmas gossips. “I had a feeling!” exclaims one. “Sweet blood sausage is typical from here!” comments another, more concerned with things to eat than things to dream. The line moves forward and the lotteries send out endings, ugly and handsome numbers, the bar or company ticket, the anniversary of I don’t know who, the number of I don’t know how many… So up to the 285.04 euros that are spent per person, on average, in the province…

García Ortiz claims that he complied with a data protection instruction, but prosecutors deny that the rule was designed for cases like this. Read The attorney general deleted his mobile phone in person and without regulatory approval

A driver rammed a car into a large crowd of revellers at a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing at least two people, including a toddler, and injuring more than 60 before he was arrested.  Car ploughs into German Christmas market in deadly holiday season attack

Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando, in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris.” CINEMATHEQUE On Friday, December 20, as part of the 100th anniversary of Marlon Brando’s birth, New York’s Film Forum screened Last Tango in Paris (1972). On its website, prominently displayed, the cinema warned that the film contained a “sexually humiliating” scene for actress Maria Schneider, which she had not been informed about before shooting it. The site encouraged viewers to learn more about what happened. The same film, in the same context, was due to be screened at La Cinémathèque Française in Paris on December 15. But the…

France’s anti-terrorism court on Friday convicted eight people of involvement in the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty four years ago. Paty was killed outside his school near Paris on October 16, 2020, days after showing his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The assailant, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot to death by police. Those who have been on trial on terrorism charges at a special court in Paris since the end of November are accused, in some cases, of providing assistance to the perpetrator and, in others, of organizing a hate…

A former member of the Colla Castellera de Sant Pere i Sant Pau de Tarragona has denounced in a letter to the entity that in 2018, when she was only 13 years old, she was a victim of sexual abuse by the current president of the colla, according to this report. Friday the media Porta Enrere and sources from the group have confirmed to EFE. In October, the young woman sent a letter to the group in which she details that her alleged attacker, who was vocal at the time, touched her, kissed her and sent her messages of sexual…

He wants Sánchez’s endorsement and will “negotiate” the financing in the bilateral Generalitat-Government and in the Joint Commission of Economic and Fiscal Affairs Read Illa will take the Catalan ERC quota to a bilateral negotiation with the Government in the first quarter of 2025

France’s President Emmanuel Macron speaks with medical staff members of the intensive care unit of the Mayotte hospital center in Mamoudzou, on the French Indian Ocean department of Mayotte, on December 19, 2024. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP France will observe a day of national mourning, on Monday, December 23, for the French overseas department of Mayotte, President Emmanuel Macron said, after the department’s Indian Ocean archipelago was devastated by a cyclone, with lacking water and food, and fear of looting gripping residents. In a post on X, on Thursday, Macron said flags would fly at half-mast on Monday, and “all…

Mathias Pogba, brother of Paul Pogba, arrives to attend the verdict in his trial with 5 others in extortion case targeting French soccer player Paul Pogba at Paris criminal court, France, December 19, 2024. ABDUL SABOOR / REUTERS A Paris court on Thursday, December 19, sentenced a brother of France midfielder Paul Pogba to a three-year prison term, with two years suspended, after convicting him in a high-profile extortion case. Mathias Pogba will be able to serve his one-year sentence with an electronic bracelet rather than behind bars. The court also fined Paul Pogba’s brother €20,000 for participating in the…

If the use of rubber balls by security forces to deal with street altercations was one of the discrepancies that caused the second attempt to reform the citizen security law, known as gag lawin the current legislature it is once again one of its great obstacles. Junts, Podemos and BNG – three of the parties that support the parliamentary majority of the Government and whose support is essential to carry out the modification of a law approved by the PP in 2015 – have presented amendments so that this anti-riot material is definitively prohibited. Two others, EH Bildu and ERC,…

Minister Ana Redondo boasted that there are instruments that allow civil registries to detect deception. Read The legal paradox of the Trans Law: Bolaños admits that there are no guidelines to detect possible fraud in sex changes

French President Emmanuel Macron extended his stay in Mayotte on Friday after distraught and angry locals jeered and shouted out their grievances as he toured the storm-ravaged Indian Ocean archipelago. Emergency efforts continue as the death toll from Cyclone Chido reaches 31, with thousands more potentially affected. Macron extends visit to cyclone-ravaged Mayotte amid local anger

“I’m socialist.” Emmanuel Macron was 36 years old, and had just been appointed as economy minister. In front of an audience of startuppers and business leaders on December 4, 2014, he unfolded a paper on which he had copied a vintage quote from historic socialist figure Jean Jaurès, published in the newspaper The Dispatch in 1887: “All politics of caste and egoism must disappear.” “Me, I’m socialist and I say it,” insisted Macron, despite having been the architect of the corporate tax credits that marked the start of President François Hollande’s liberal. Two years later, in August 2016, Macron was…

Virtually extinct at the beginning of the 20th century, Europe’s largest rodent is now well established along French waterways. Its presence, which can give rise to conflicts of use, also significantly benefits biodiversity and society. The beaver, a sometimes annoying yet very useful neighbor, is back in France

Judge Santiago Pedraz has refused to delve deeper into the investigation into the police espionage of Podemos ordered by the Ministry of the Interior in 2016, the objective of which was to discredit the leaders of that political formation by leaking false information to certain media, according to the numerous evidence that already appears in the summary opened for this case.The investigation opened months ago into these events managed to uncover the existence within the ministry of two secret operations against Podemos leaders, called Venus and Bolívar, which were leaked to media related to the PP Government with attributions of…

“Pedro Sánchez, who is not reminded of the fulfillment of any promise, presents any information that questions it as a hoax. By default, only what he says can be true” Read The wall of Buenos Aires