Middle East News

Most recent stories in Middle East News

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  RFI English

  

  Mali shows support for singer Rokia Traore, arrested in France

  RFI

  Mali's government has expressed its support for singer Rokia Traore, arrested earlier this week on a Belgian warrant over a child custody dispute with her ex-partner. The Malian artist has since begun a hunger strike in protest. Rokia Traore was detained as she arrived from Bamako at Paris's Charles …

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  RFI English

  

  Caterpillars are GOOD for you: leading Zim scientist says delicacy boosts nutrition

  RFI - Ryan Truscott

  Could caterpillars help Zimbabwe to ease high rates of malnutrition and earn much-needed foreign currency? Speckled yellow and white caterpillars, known locally as mopane worms, are harvested and eaten as a delicacy by hundreds of thousands of people across the region at the height of the southern …

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  RFI English

  

  Poachers kill Kenya's only white female giraffe and calf

  RFI - Daniel Singleton

  The Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy has said that the bodies of a white female giraffe and her calf had been found "in a skeletal state after being killed by armed poachers" in Garissa County, in the east of the country. Rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service were called to the animal …

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  RFI English

  

  Mali’s jihadists demand French withdrawal as condition for talks

  RFI - Zeenat Hansrod

  A Malian jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaeda says it is willing to engage in dialogue with the government – but only if French troops and the United Nations mission leave the country. The statement by GSIM, or Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, follows a decision taken this year by …

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  RFI English

  

  Former film mogul Harvey Weinstein jailed for 23 years

  RFI

  Disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in prison following his sexual assault and rape conviction last month. The 67-year-old faces spending the rest of his life behind bars after New York Justice James Burke, who presided over Weinstein’s trial, ignored his pleas …

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  RFI English

  

  Can Xi Jinping survive the coronavirus crisis?

  RFI - Jan van der Made

  Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited Wuhan for the first time since the city was identified as the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic. Quarantine measures that sealed off Wuhan and central Hubei province appear to be paying off, with new infections dropping dramatically in recent weeks. But …