France

PARIS, November 28./TASS/: TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman has been elected permanent rapporteur to the Bureau of the UNESCO International Program for the Development of Communication (IPDC), Russia’s permanent mission to the organization told TASS.

"This morning elections took place to the IPDC Bureau for the position of rapporteur, which resulted in the election of Mikhail Solomonovich Gusman," the mission said. The only other contender in voting for the position was a representative of Estonia.

PARIS, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Italy, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are battling it out in Paris on Tuesday for the right to host the Expo 2030 world fair, a five-yearly event that attracts millions of visitors and billions of dollars in investment.

The three countries' delegations have been in horse-trading overdrive over the past few months to win votes from the 182 member states of the Bureau International des Expositions, holding splashy lobbying events in the French capital.

PARIS, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Six teenagers go on trial behind closed doors on Monday in connection with the beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, a murder that shocked the country.

The teacher had shown his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression, angering some Muslim parents. Most Muslims avoid depictions of prophets, considering them blasphemous.

PARIS, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Monday announced she was quitting the X platform formerly known as Twitter, calling it a "gigantic global sewer" that was "destroying our democracies" by spreading abuse and misinformation.

After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk laid off thousands of employees, including many who moderated content on the platform. Rebranded as X, it has lost several major advertisers and was blasted by critics, including the White House, for not doing enough to curtail antisemitism.

Nov 17 (Reuters) - The White House on Friday condemned Elon Musk's endorsement of what it called a "hideous" antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, while major U.S. companies including Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O) and NBCUniversal parent Comcast (CMCSA.O) paused their advertisements on his social media site.

Musk on Wednesday agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory was speaking "the actual truth."

PARIS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - French judges have issued arrest warrants for Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and two other senior officials over the use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

The arrest warrants -- which refer to charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes -- follow a criminal investigation into chemical attacks in the town of Douma and the district of Eastern Ghouta in August 2013, attacks which killed more than 1,000 people.

PARIS, Nov 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Countries’ climate pledges will cut carbon emissions by just two percent by the end of the decade from 2019 levels, far short of the 43 percent fall needed to limit warming to 1.5C, the UN warned
Tuesday.

The annual assessment of climate commitments shows they are “severely off track”, said UN Climate Change chief Simon Stiell, calling for climate talks in Dubai this month to mark a “clear turning point” for a world already
wracked by increasing floods, heatwaves and storms. 

A FRENCH ARMY BASE, France (AP) — Battle cries pierce the smoke and rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire as Ukrainian soldiers fight through and take enemy trenches and dugouts that hide gruesome, bloody remains.

“Grenade!” one screams in Ukrainian. Another yells: “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

This time, no lives or limbs were lost. Because this time, the rounds fired were blanks and the “enemy” troops were, in fact, French soldiers whose intention was not to kill the Ukrainians but instead to help shape them into better, more lethal warriors.

PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Thousands of marchers joined lawmakers in Paris on Sunday to condemn a surge in antisemitic acts in France during the conflict in the Gaza Strip, but arguments over political participation clouded an intended show of unity.

The protest, called by the leaders of France's two houses of parliament, was prompted by a three-fold increase in the number of antisemitic incidents compared with the whole of 2022, according to French authorities, since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

PARIS (AP) — Western and Arab nations, international agencies and nongovernmental groups stressed the urgent need for aid for Gaza civilians at a Paris conference Thursday, held as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory worsens amid Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against Hamas.

The gathering ended a few hours before the White House said Israel has agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in Gaza, starting on Thursday.