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This is a moment of real opportunity, but also real danger for Syrians, IRC's Donnelly says

Syria's new prime minister said the Islamist-led alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will guarantee the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Ciarán Donn

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French lawmakers consider emergencing financing law

French lawmakers are considering emergency financing laws to avoid a potential shutdown of government services. The budget which Michel Barnier attempted to force through parliament was a key factor in the no-confidence vote which toppled his government.

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More than 120, mostly civilians, killed in two days in Sudan bombardments

Africa • 8:44 PM

More than 120 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Sudan on Monday and Tuesday by barrel bombs and shelling from the warring sides, rights activists said. The 20-month-old war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been

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Viral audio deepfake falsely claims Bashar al-Assad ‘apologised’ to Syrian people

In today’s edition of Truth or Fake, France 24's Vedika Bahl debunks two fake stories circulating from Syria, about the now-ousted Assad dynasty. One falsehood claims to show an audio extract where Bashar al-Assad renounced his post and apologised to Syr

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Who are the main rebel factions operating in Syria?

Syrian rebels who have ousted Bashar al-Assad and seized the capital Damascus include fighters from different factions, while other groups also hold territory elsewhere. FRANCE 24's Emerald Maxwell takes a look.

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Celebrations in central Damascus on first night without curfew

Joyful scenes in Damascus' Umayyad Square as Syrians celebrate the fall of the Assad regime. The first night without a curfew sees crowds gathering in the capital brandishing the three-starred independence-era flag. FRANCE 24's James Andre reports from D

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Scramble for Syria? Foreign powers pounce amid post-Assad uncertainty

Taking advantage of a brief power vacuum or are we witnessing a scramble for Syria? As Islamist-led rebels savor their surprise swoop on Damascus, foreign powers are seizing the moment to either clean house or settle scores: Turkey targeting Kurds in th

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'Unprecedented' in history of UN: An institution 'dedicated to determining fate of missing Syrians'

The fall of Assad sparked a frantic search by families of the tens of thousands of people held in his security services' jails and detention centres. As they advanced towards Damascus, the rebels released thousands of detainees, but many more remain miss

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Preparing for potential 'chaos' in post-Assad Syria, Israel goes on the offensive

The Israeli military says it carried out nearly 500 strikes against Syrian military targets in the days since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, while its troops moved into a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights that was established following the

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FIFA’s Saudi Arabia World Cup host pick sparks ‘sportswashing’ accusations by rights groups

Saudi Arabia was officially confirmed Wednesday by FIFA as the host of the 2034 World Cup in men’s football, sparking "sportswashing" accusations from human rights groups. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will co-host the 2030 World Cup, with Argentina, Parag

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Fall of Assad reveals the death of Mazen al-Hamada, symbol of the regime’s atrocities

The body of Syrian activist Mazen al-Hamada was found Monday in a military hospital morgue near Damascus, according to a number of NGOs. Imprisoned and tortured by the Syrian military after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, Hamada fled to Europe to d

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Russia threatens to retaliate after Ukrainian ATACMS strike in Rostov

Moscow on Wednesday accused Kyiv of firing US-supplied ATACAMS missiles on a military airfield in its southern Rostov region and threatened to retaliate. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's "destructive" approach made peace impossible.

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What next for Wikie and Keijo? NGOs call for Marineland’s orcas to be sent to a sanctuary

A French court has handed down its verdict on two orcas still living in captivity in the Marineland of Antibes: Wikie and Keijo will not be transferred to another park before the end of an investigation into their living conditions. This follows the gove

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‘Saint-Ex’: Biopic of ‘The Little Prince’ author Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Culture • 3:47 PM

Dheepthika Laurent and film critic Perrine Quenesson look at the latest film releases in France, starting with a very famous aviator: the enigmatic Antoine de Saint Exupéry, best known for writing "The Little Prince". He’s the focus of "Saint-Ex", a biop

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Google launches latest AI model, Gemini 2.0, marking ‘a new agentic era’

Google on Wednesday unveiled Gemini 2.0, a new artificial intelligence (AI) model designed to tackle more conceptual work and thinking done by humans amid fierce competition from the world's leading tech companies.

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Eleven-year-old survives shipwreck, 40 migrants missing in Mediterranean

An 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone was rescued after three days at sea off Italy's Lampedusa island, a rescue charity said Wednesday. She was the sole survivor after the boat, which had more than 40 people on board, capsized.

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A bitter pill to swallow? France's relationship to medicine

France has restricted the sale of certain common cold medicines by making them prescription only. On today’s edition, we explain why the ANSM – France’s national agency for the safety of medicine and health products – has made this call. We also dive int

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Yemen's civil war through the lenses of photojournalist Asmaa Waguih

A world-renowned news photographer has spoken to FRANCE 24 about her efforts to document the conflict in Yemen. Asmaa Waguih has been to numerous countries, including Afghanistan and Libya – and won last year the Reuters Photographer of the Year for her

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Struggling to cope with horrors of war, Israeli soldiers turn to equine therapy

Since the October 7 Hamas attack last year, some 350,000 Israeli reservists have been called up to fight. The ongoing fighting, now entering its 14-month mark, has left its mark on Israel troops as more and more suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder

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Business uncertainty reaches new highs as France waits for a new PM

A survey on the outlook of French businesses released by the Bank of France shows that the country's industrial and construction sectors have reached levels of uncertainty last seen during the 2022 energy crunch. This comes as Emmanuel Macron is expected

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French President Macron 'paying the price' for solitary politics

PRESS REVIEW – Friday, December 6: Emmanuel Macron is "alone”, "solitary" in the face of an unprecedented political crisis. The press has few words of comfort for Macron as France's political chaos ensues. Also, EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen flies

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Kenyan police fire teargas at peaceful anti-femicide march

Hundreds of women took to the streets of Nairobi to protest against femicides and to demand action. But things quickly turned tense when Kenyan police fired teargas. At least three people were arrested, including Amnesty's Kenya director. Amnesty and thr

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Dozens killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, say Palestinian medics

Palestinian medical officials said separate Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 29 people overnight and into Wednesday. Hospital records showed that one of the strikes killed several generations of one family, including four children, their

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Prosecutors call for two-year sentence for suspect in Amsterdam football violence

Europe • 8:24 AM

Five suspects appeared in a Dutch court Wednesday on charges of assaulting visiting Israeli football fans last month following a game in Amsterdam. The attacks came after two days of clashes during which fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv chanted anti-Arab songs a

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Syrians hope for freedom, democracy in wake of Assad's ousting

Syrians have reacted positively to the appointment of interim prime minister, Mohammad al-Bashir, says FRANCE 24's senior reporter James André, reporting from Damascus. Hopes are high that new leadership will mark a new start in Syria. "One young woman w

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'Israel saw a vacuum' caused by the end of the Assad regime

Israeli interventions in Syria since the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad are an attempt to "take Syria back to the period before Iran began using Syria as a weapons hub for the transmission of armaments to Hezbollah in Lebanon", says FRANCE 24 corre

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Live: Assad’s Baath party suspends work indefinitely in Syria

Former Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad’s Baath party announced Wednesday that it was suspending work indefinitely, ending more than half-a-century of the Assad family’s rule. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments.

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Police raid South Korean president's office in martial law investigation

Pacific Asia • 5:24 AM

The investigation into South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's attempt at martial law accelerated on Wednesday, as police conducted a raid on Yoon's office and arrested a slew of officials, including the former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun.

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Prosecutors restate opposition to Trump bid to dismiss hush money conviction

Prosecutors in Manhattan urged the court on Tuesday to "reject" US President-elect Donald Trump's latest attempt to throw out his civil fraud conviction for hiding payments made to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, but agreed to put the

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Taiwan says 'troublemaker' China ramps up military exercises around the island

Pacific Asia • 3:25 AM

Taiwanese authorities said it’s “troublemaker” neighbour, China, has expanded military drills around the island. A senior national security official said the massive maritime operation was meant to demonstrate that Beijing could choke off Taiwan and also

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Syrian refugees attempt to return home after fall of Assad regime

After Syria's liberation from the decades-long Assad regime, Syrian refugees are beginning to cautiously hope for a long-awaited return to their homeland. However, many face daunting obstacles that could endanger their homecoming. "We don't have the mean

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Sudan 'biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded', International Rescue Committee says

Africa • 12:45 AM

Sudan topped the ICR's watchlist of global humanitarian crises for the second year in a row in a report released Wednesday. The organisation said a total of 30.4 million people were in humanitarian need in the war-torn African country, making it the worl

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Syrian rebels name head of transitional government

Syrian rebels appointed Mohammed al-Bashir, the former head of the rebel administration in the north-west, to lead the country's transitional government and begin an era of "stability and calm" after ousting long-time president Bashar al-Assad.

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PSG and Real Madrid victorious, Liverpool continue unbeaten in Champions League

Liverpool kept up their unbeaten run in the Champions League with a 1-0 victory over Girona on Tuesday, while Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa also won their matches. Real Madrid beat Atalanta 3-2 away despite Kylian Mbappe's injury.

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Yesterday

HTS' record in Idlib ‘not a liberal democracy by any stretch of the imagination’, analyst says

International diplomats reacted cautiously Monday to the prospect of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group taking control in Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. HTS has its roots in the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and is proscribed a

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Left or right? Macron aims to pick new French PM 'within 48 hours'

French President Emmanuel Macron aims to name a new Prime Minister for France "within 48 hours" as he seeks to end political deadlock following the ouster of Michel Barnier. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer at Lancaste

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No, these images don’t show Sednaya prisoners found in secret underground cells

The Sednaya prison, where thousands of opponents of Bashar-Al Assad’s regime were detained and tortured, was liberated by opposition forces on Sunday. Unconfirmed rumors have been circulating that there might still be prisoners stuck in the basement of t

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Kenyan police fire teargas at peaceful anti-femicide march

Hundreds of women took to the streets of Nairobi to protest against femicides and to demand action. But things quickly turned tense when Kenyan police fired teargas. At least three people were arrested, including Amnesty's Kenya director. Amnesty and thr

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Ghana: Former president John Mahama wins election

Africa • 9:11 PM

John Dramani Mahama, Ghana’s former president, has been declared the winner of the presidential election, securing 56.5% of the vote. His campaign, focused on tackling the economic crisis, resonated with young Ghanaians seeking change. Celebrations have

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UnitedHealth CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione fights extradition to avoid facing charges

Luigi Mangione, the man charged in last week’s killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom on Tuesday, where he was denied bail and his lawyer said he would fight extradition to New York City, where the attack happened.

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Any decision to force people to return to Syria would be very premature: migration policy analyst

As some semblance of normality slowly settles in in Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, questions are turning to what's next for the millions of Syrian refugees spread out across the world. FRANCE 24's Andrew Hilliar reports from Gaziantep in Turkey

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UN mission calls for funding amid Ethiopia education disruption

Africa • 7:54 PM

A UN high-level mission in Ethiopia led by Education Cannot Wait calls for innovative financing solutions to urgently address the education needs of 9 million crisis-affected out-of-school children. FRANCE 24's Yinka Oyetade speaks to Education Cannot Wa

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Israeli PM Netanyahu testifies in corruption trial

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed the allegations against him as he testified in court for the first time in his corruption case. Netanyahu, who has repeatedly sought to delay his court appearance, is the first sitting prime

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Refugees start to return, what will they find? Syria's new future starts now

Refugees, asylum seekers, Syrians in exil: the return to Syria begins with people who have given up on returning now back on their home soil.

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Thousands flee as wildfire threatens homes in California's Malibu

Sheriff deputies in Malibu, California went door-to-door on Tuesday ordering people to evacuate as a nearby wildfire rapidly intensified, threatening homes in the beach community. Firefighters are trying to get the blaze under control.

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The fall of Bashar al-Assad: ‘Turkey proves, once again, that it cannot be ignored’

The toppling of Ankara’s archenemy Bashar al-Assad in Syria may have increased Turkey’s regional influence but it also represents a strategic challenge for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as regional expert Didier Billion explains.

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'HTS wants one thing: Stability in Syria, it does not want to fight the Kurds'

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly declared that Syria must never be divided again, and Turkey will act against anyone seeking to compromise its territory. For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective on the post-civil war chapter of a newly free

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Actor who pioneered French cinema’s #MeToo movement storms out of child abuse trial

Europe • 5:23 PM

On the last day of her trial against the filmmaker she accused of sexually assaulting her as a child, French actor Adèle Haenel on Tuesday briefly stormed out of the courtroom and told Christophe Ruggia to "shut up". Haenel was the first prominent French

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Syria: Mohammed al-Bashir becomes caretaker prime minister

The rebels who ousted president Bashar al-Assad and are now in power in Syria appointed a transitional head of government to run the country until March 1. Analysis by FRANCE 24 International Affairs Editor, Philip Turle.

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'Huge opportunity to craft a new Syria,' says UN Human Rights Chief

FRANCE 24 spoke to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk about the end of the Assad regime, brought down by a lightning offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). With the old regime gone, Turk said there is n

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Israel airstrikes target over 250 strategic sites in Syria

The Israeli military targeted at least six Syrian naval vessels in an attack on the Syrian port of Latakia. They are part of the over 250 strategic sites in Syria that Israel has targettted over the past few days. Story by Antonia Kerrigan.

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Rebel-backed figure takes charge as Syria's interim prime minister

Syria's new interim leader announced he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago. Story by Carys Garland and Eliza Herbert.

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