First came US taxes on French wines, then the pandemic and the dumping of gallons of unsold wine and champagne as France shutdown and alcohol consumption plummeted. Now winemakers and fruit growers are facing one of their bleakest harvests after a three-day agricultural disaster blanketed crops in frost. Though the government has pledged financial aid, […]
A French documentary has cast fresh doubts over the world’s most expensive painting, the “Salvator Mundi” credited to Leonardo da Vinci, revealing a resulting diplomatic tussle between France and its Saudi owner. The painting of Jesus Christ, nicknamed the “male Mona Lisa”, was sold at a 2017 Christies auction in New York for a record […]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got a new lease on his political life on Tuesday, receiving a mandate from Israel’s president to form a new government after an inconclusive election. Israel‘s longest-serving leader, in power consecutively since 2009, now faces the tough task of breaking an unprecedented political stalemate and enlisting enough allies for a governing […]
The UK medical regulator said Saturday that out of 30 people who suffered blood clots after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, seven have died. “Out of the 30 reports up to and including 24 March, sadly 7 have died,” the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said in a statement sent to AFP. Announcing the […]
The US State Department on Friday said the US has agreed to talks next week with European, Russian and Chinese partners to identify issues involving its return to the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, nearly three years after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal. State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the resumption of […]
Canadian experts on Monday recommended halting the use of AstraZeneca Covid-19 shots for people aged under 55, after a small but rising number of patients abroad suffered blood clots. Manitoba and Quebec provinces were the first to heed the new National Advisory Committee on Immunization and Health (NACI) guidelines, with each region responsible for its […]
French health authorities said on Monday that the number of patients in intensive care with Covid-19 increased by 102 to 4,974, more than the 4,919 high of the second lockdown in mid-November. This week will be decisive for the strategy overseen by President Emmanuel Macron and his government who argue that every day without a […]
Shipping traffic through Egypt’s Suez Canal resumed on Monday after a giant container ship that had been blocking the busy waterway for almost a week was refloated, the canal authority said. The 400-metre-long Ever Given became jammed diagonally across a southern section of the canal in high winds early last Tuesday, halting traffic on the […]
The Louvre museum in Paris said Friday it has put nearly half a million items from its collection online for the public to visit free of charge. As part of a major revamp of its online presence, the world’s most-visited museum has created a new database of 482,000 items at collections.louvre.fr with more than three-quarters […]
In the aftermath of the March 23 Israeli general elections, religious nationalist politician Naftali Bennett, whose Yamina party is set to win seven parliamentary seats, could determine the political future of his former boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Following Israel’s latest parliamentary elections this week, Netanyahu might be unable to a form a government without […]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first stormed to power a quarter of a century ago and has since refashioned Israeli politics with the help of Republican strategists from the United States. In power continuously since 2009, Israel’s longest-serving leader is seeking a record sixth term in Tuesday’s election, the fourth such vote in just two years. […]
Swathes of France go into lockdown for the third time on Friday, the latest instance of a government taking emergency measures after attempts to manage the pandemic failed. In this context, many experts advocate a more hawkish “Zero Covid” strategy to bring the virus’s spread as low as possible, even if eliminating the virus is […]
[Verse 1: Justin Bieber] I bought a castle in France and it's the same one I built in the sand for you, when I was two I thought I painted a picture of Heaven But it turns out it's just your room, just your room I'd run off the end of the earth just to […]
France will return a masterpiece by Gustav Klimt to the heirs of its owner more than 80 years after she was forced to sell it in the Nazi era, Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said on Monday. The original owner – Nora Stiasny, from a well-known Austrian Jewish family – had to sell the painting “Rosiers […]
Russia and China signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday to set up an international lunar research station as both countries seek to catch up with the United States in the space race. Russia, which sent the first man into space during the Soviet Union, has been lagging behind Washington and Beijing in the exploration […]
Loopholes in Microsoft’s Outlook email system have enabled hackers in Beijing to spy on American interests since the beginning of the year. Before them, it was the Russians who managed to eavesdrop on US government departments. Will there be a new wave of large-scale operations in cyberspace to put pressure on the new American president? […]
France concealed the levels of radioactivity that French Polynesia was exposed to during French nuclear tests in the Pacific from 1966-1996, with almost the “entire population” of the overseas territory infected, a report said on Tuesday. Online investigation site Disclose said it had over two years analyzed some 2,000 pages of French military documents declassified […]
In a former royal forest, tree surgeons on Monday began felling centuries-old oak trees which will be used to rebuild the wooden-framed spire of Notre-Dame de Paris after it was destroyed by fire. The lead-coated spire, which for more than 150 years had defined the central Paris sky line, was consumed by the blaze in […]
The Louvre museum in Paris said Wednesday that it had recovered a set of gold and silver-encrusted Renaissance-era armor nearly 40 years after it was stolen. A military antiques expert alerted police after being called in to give advice regarding an inheritance in Bordeaux in January and becoming suspicious about the luxurious helmet and body […]
Tough-talking politicians from the right are accustomed to demanding “exemplary” punishments. This week, they did not appreciate the judiciary making an example of their champion, Nicolas Sarkozy, venting their fury at a special prosecutor’s office tasked with cleaning up French politics. The former French president was handed a jail sentence on Monday for corruption and […]
France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he might consider taking his appeal against a corruption conviction to the European Court of Human Rights. “I can’t accept being convicted for something I didn’t do,” Sarkozy told the French daily Le Figaro a day after he was found guilty of corruption and handed a three-year […]
A French court found former president Nicolas Sarkozy guilty on Monday of trying to bribe a judge and of influence peddling, making him the second head of state in modern-day France to be convicted of corruption. Sarkozy, who led France from 2007 to 2012, was found guilty of offering a plum job in Monaco to […]
A US panel on Friday recommended Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose Covid-19 shot for emergency approval, as some of the world’s most powerful countries issued a unified call for better vaccine access for poorer nations. The United States is the world’s hardest-hit country, and its emergency use authorization — which is now expected shortly — of […]
In his first big appearance on the global stage, US President Joe Biden on Friday called on fellow world leaders to come together to prove that “democracies can still deliver” as he underscored his administration’s determination to quickly turn the page on Donald Trump’s “America First” approach. In an online speech to the Munich Security […]
To realise his dream of satellite-powered internet, tech billionaire Elon Musk needs to install antennas around the world. In northern France, a village hopes he’ll decide to keep those antennas far away. Saint-Senier-de-Beuvron, population 350, is none too thrilled to have been picked as a ground station for Musk’s Starlink project for broadband from space. […]
A baby has been born following a uterus transplant for the first time ever in France, the hospital treating mother and infant said Wednesday. Such births are extremely rare but not unprecedented, and come after a cutting-edge procedure to transplant a healthy uterus into a woman whose own is damaged or missing. The baby, a […]
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, expressing her commitment to strengthening bilateral ties between the two countries, her office said in a statement. President Joe Biden, a former vice president himself under Barack Obama, has had Harris at his side for multiple events during his early White House tenure, […]
In a business still dominated by men, French chef Hélène Darroze credits a feminine, “emotional” touch for her unprecedented leap from three to five Michelin stars this year. Darroze is already a household name in France thanks to her appearances on “Top Chef” – famous enough even to have a Barbie doll in her image. […]
By Lucien Libert PARIS (Reuters) – It is the classic romantic combination: St Valentine’s Day in Paris, the city of love, and a gift of red roses. But some Parisian florists are trying to wean customers off the flowers because of their ecological cost. Most roses sold in France in the run-up to St Valentine’s […]
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen appeared in court Wednesday on charges she broke hate speech laws by tweeting pictures of Islamic State (IS) group atrocities, a case she slammed as a politically motivated attempt to silence her. The trial comes as opinion polls show Le Pen will likely face off again against Emmanuel Macron […]