The European Union is stepping up its oversight of artificial intelligence this week, as the main provisions of its landmark AI Act became applicable, giving regulators stronger powers to inspect advanced models and sanction companies that break the rules.

Benin’s new senate was inaugurated in Porto-Novo last week, creating a second chamber of parliament with powers to review legislation, protect constitutional rules and discipline political figures.

A Paris court on Monday rejected an appeal by a Russian television commentator against an order to leave France after authorities accused her of spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.

France is strengthening its oversight of non-European investment in strategically important companies, lowering the threshold at which foreign share purchases require government approval.

Lorena Wiebes from the Netherlands won her second consecutive stage at the 2026 Women's Tour de France on Sunday to set a record of seven stage victories in the five-year-old race.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres travelled to Cyprus this week with an offer of new peace talks – the latest attempt to resolve a conflict that has outlasted 11 of his predecessors. The island's division, sealed by Turkey's 1974 invasion but rooted in the flawed power-sharing constitution of 1960, is one of the world's longest-lasting frozen conflicts.

Mauritius's parliament has unanimously voted to criminalise marital rape and impose harsher sentences for femicide, after a spate of violent attacks against women exposed serious gaps in protection. New reforms aim to improve safeguards for victims who have long gone unheard and unprotected.

Burkina Faso has been added to the watchlist of human rights monitoring NGO Civicus, with the country's military authorities drastically escalating restrictions on civil society and intensifying reprisals against its critics in recent months.

Gianni Infantino, the boss of world football's governing body Fifa, caved into international pressure on Saturday and abandoned his brainchild to sell World Cup profits to private equity.

An Azerbaijani appeal court has upheld the 10-year sentence of a French national, Martin Ryan, for “espionage", in a case that arose against a backdrop of tensions between Paris and Baku.

A total of 308 people have been detained across France as part of investigations into a recent wave of wildfires, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday, with two-thirds of them suspected of "deliberate arson".

Repeated heatwaves in France are taking a toll on people's lungs, doctors say, with young patients with no prior respiratory issues increasingly being admitted to hospital, a leading pulmonologist has told RFI.

South Africa is suffering a drop in its workforce, following the departure of thousands of foreign workers in the wake of a wave of xenophobic attacks, anti-migrant protests and intensified immigration enforcement.

A statue honoring Tiphaine Véron, the French tourist who vanished in Japan in 2018, was unveiled Wednesday near the Nikko hotel where she was last seen. Eight years on and still without a single solid lead, her family is now pushing for Japan's national police to take over the stalled investigation.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed a “good meeting” with US President Donald Trump at the White House, saying the two leaders discussed plans to produce Patriot air-defence interceptors and ways to revive stalled negotiations with Russia.

Zinedine Zidane was officially appointed as France's new head coach on Tuesday, succeeding Didier Deschamps, the French Football Federation announced.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged new drone-jamming technology to Ukraine on Monday, using his first meeting with a foreign leader since taking office to underline Britain's continued military backing for Kyiv.

Iran's foreign ministry has said it had summoned the French ambassador to Tehran to protest the conduct of two diplomats who were briefly detained earlier this month.

French President Emmanuel Macron convened ministers on Monday before heading to south-west France, where wildfires have displaced hundreds of thousands and a new heatwave threatens to reignite the flames.

The mayor of Bordeaux in southwest France said on Sunday authorities had no current plans to evacuate the UNESCO-listed city due to raging forest fires but were "ready for anything."

Devastating wildfires in the southwest of France have uncovered a hidden cache of Second World War-era shells in the village of Le Porge, adding an explosive edge to an already dangerous situation.

Water-bombing aircraft returned to the skies over Greece on Monday as firefighters battled several major blazes near Athens, a day after two pilots were killed when their fire-fighting helicopter collided with another aircraft.

A Sudanese rights group reported that the Sudanese army (SAF) struck a traditional court in a Rapid Support Forces-held village in North Darfur with drones on Sunday, killing 35 people.

The European Union will hold an emergency video conference meeting of national ministers on Tuesday to discuss the mass migrant crossings into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta.

As Washington begins its review of the United States' military presence in Europe – confirmed this week by Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby – few observers welcome the prospect more than David Vine, a long-time critic of the sprawling network of American overseas bases.

Ghana head coach Kim Björkegren predicted a better performance from his side in their group stage game against Cameroon on Sunday night at the 2026 women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON).

Lorena Wiebes won the opening stage of the 2026 Women’s Tour de France on Saturday.

The planet's most powerful football administrator Gianni Infantino on Saturday yielded to the international collective when he pulled the plug on a plan to allow private investment in the World Cup. His proposals for world football's governing body Fifa to reform its commercial operations had sparked a furious backlash.

France's star cyclist Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will set off on Saturday as one of the favourites for the 2026 Women's Tour de France. The 34-year-old will also be seeking a slice of cycling history. No rider has retained the crown since the competition started in 2022.

When Davie Kampira, 34, a farmer in Nsanje, southern Malawi, received 34 banana suckers in 2024, he did not envisage that the few dozen plants he tried out on a run-down piece of land, previously used for brickmaking, would transform into a small estate. Today, two years later, the land beside the river has produced nine hectares of different banana varieties, along with houses, a shop and a better life for his two children and wife.

Executives at world football's governing body Fifa on Friday said "incorrect" media reports had "disrupted" the presentation of its proposals to open up the World Cup to outside investors.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Constitutional Court has approved a referendum law that critics say could pave the way for President Felix Tshisekedi to seek a third term in office, prompting a coalition of opposition parties to reject the ruling and vow to fight the change.

As firefighters continue to battle major blazes in France, the European Union's crisis management chief is calling for more investment in prevention, forest management and emergency response.

Renault will face a criminal trial in France on aggravated fraud charges over accusations that devices in its diesel cars were designed to cheat clean air laws, the public prosecutor's office told French press agency AFP.

The European Union on Tuesday condemned an "aggression" this month by Iranian security services against two French diplomats in Tehran.

The United States began reviewing its military presence in Europe on Monday, officials said, after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told his NATO counterparts last month that Washington was planning such an analysis.

Chad has become the fifth country to begin a formal withdrawal process from the International Criminal Court in recent months, following Venezuela, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Three years after President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown, Niger is recording strong oil-driven growth but facing rising jihadist violence and a severe restriction of political freedoms, former ambassador Kiari Liman-Tinguiri tells RFI.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has climbed to 1,405, with confirmed cases now at 3,200, government data showed Sunday, as researchers race to develop a vaccine.

Firefighters are continuing to battle huge forest fires across France and Spain on Monday, as authorities warned that another heatwave could bring temperatures of up to 40C to the already scorched wine-growing region around Bordeaux.

President Paul Biya left Cameroon in early June for what his office described as a "short private stay in Europe." Addressing the concerns regarding this prolonged absence, a government spokesperson has told RFI the 93-year-old head of state is healthy and hard at work, even while abroad.

In Ethiopia, hundreds of people have started to flee to Sudan following Saturday's fighting, when clashes in Tigray pitted federal forces against rebels from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Both sides accuse each other of seeking to trigger a new conflict.

France’s wildfire situation has shown signs of improvement on Monday, with thousands of residents and tourists preparing to return to evacuated areas in the south-west, even as firefighters remained on alert amid high temperatures, low humidity and a new risk of violent thunderstorms.

Cameroon beat Ghana 1-0 on Sunday night in Casablanca to move into the quarter-finals at the 2026 Women's Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) while Mali relaunched their campaign with a 3-2 victory over tournament debutants Cape Verde.

Astronomers have this week unveiled the first image of an elusive companion star orbiting Betelgeuse, one of the brightest and best-known stars located in the Orion constellation.

"We have had more heatwaves in the last 15 years than during the previous 60 years," the CEO of France's weather bureau Météo-France, Virginie Schwarz said on Thursday. As France experiences its fourth heatwave of the summer, experts warn preventative measures to deal with the changing climate are severely lacking.

European football's governing body Uefa on Saturday said it had lost confidence in the Fifa boss Gianni Infantino after world soccer's ruling organisation abandoned plans to sell a stake in the commercial rights to the World Cup.

Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, the world's two largest cocoa producers, have signed a joint declaration pledging closer cooperation on pricing, local processing, environmental protection and scientific research, as the two countries seek to secure better incomes for millions of cocoa farmers

Intensifying clashes between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea are threatening a crucial trade artery responsible for nearly a third of the world's wheat supply, stoking fears of soaring prices and shortages.

Some 60,000 migrants entered Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco in the space of 24 hours, between Thursday and Friday, leaving at least 34 dead and prompting France to tighten controls along its border with Spain.

France has frozen the assets of pro-Kremlin commentator Xenia Fedorova for six months, the government announced on Friday, adding a financial measure to an expulsion order already issued against her over accusations of spreading Kremlin propaganda on French television and undermining democracy.

Russia has annoucned that it was seeking the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov over accusations of "complicity in terrorism", alleging he had let the platform be used for recruitment by Ukraine's security services.

France has ordered the expulsion of Xenia Fedorova, the former head of RT France, after accusing the Russian journalist of spreading Kremlin propaganda on French television and radio, including on channels owned by the Bolloré group, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

Uganda's health minister declared the country Ebola-free on Tuesday following the East African nation's end of the latest outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic disease. It had infected 20 people and killed two of them in the country.

United States diplomats walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday as their French counterparts were speaking, after Paris criticised the Trump administration’s human rights record and backed a second term for human rights chief Volker Turk. The move underlined the growing strain in relations between Washington and one of its closest European allies.

Haiti's electoral council just scheduled the first elections in a decade for December with a runoff in February. Earlier plans to hold the vote in August with a December runoff were postponed over security concerns.

Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye launched a new political party called Kiiraay, on Saturday, following his high-profile falling-out with his former mentor and ex-prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, and his party, Pastef.

A French off-duty policeman on Monday detained a man after he allegedly attacked and wounded three women with two kitchen knives in Paris, France's interior minister said.

Iran and the United States have paused their attacks, offering Gulf shipping and global oil markets a respite after weeks of escalating strikes around the Strait of Hormuz.

A few keywords in a search engine will bring up any number of strange laws involving animals in the United States. Many are urban myths: there is no law specifically prohibiting driving a car in Massachusetts with a gorilla in the back seat, although no one would dispute that would be a questionable idea. Others, however, are very real.