In an interview with FRANCE 24, Taiwan's Vice President Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist by training, discussed his country's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, while criticising the response of China and the World Health Organization. Chen refused to rule out the "possibility" that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan. He also expressed concern about a second wave of the virus appearing in autumn or winter.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of potential famines of "biblical proportions" as the Covid-19 pandemic affects countries in an already dire situation. In an interview with FRANCE 24, the United Nation's WFP Executive Director David Beasley said he was especially worried about a breakdown in the supply chain that allows his agency to provide food to dozens of millions of people around the globe.

Dozens of Afghan migrants are feared dead after Iranian border guards allegedly forced them into a river on the Iran-Afghan border on May 1. Of the 57 men and boys in the group only 12 are known to have survived. One of the survivors told the France 24 Observers team that he and the others were arrested and tortured by guards from an Iranian border post overlooking the Harirud river. His account, along with amateur videos circulating on social media in Afghanistan, allowed the Observers team to pinpoint the location of the Iranian border post. 

Despite being one of Greece's best-known folk singers, Natassa Bofiliou is among thousands of artists worried about the economic impact of coronavirus lockdowns that have only just begun to be eased.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 30 different quotes attributed to public figures including French infectious disease expert Didier Raoult, French president Emmanuel Macron and Madagascar president Andry Rajoelina have been making the rounds on Congolese Facebook pages. But it turns out all of them were made up. The FRANCE 24 Observers team tracked down the source of these widely circulated fake quotes and discovered a 20-year-old keen to generate “a buzz”.

Russia marks 75 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Saturday, but the coronavirus outbreak has forced it to scale back celebrations seen as boosting support for the Kremlin.

Brazil, the country in Latin America that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, said Friday it had reached a new daily record for COVID-19 fatalities with 751 deaths.

In a mid-April report, the NGO Human Rights Watch cited UN statistics that the main prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at 432 percent capacity, with Makala Prison in the country’s capital of Kinshasa at 461 percent. While media access to prisons in Kinshasa is denied, FRANCE 24 obtained amateur footage from Makala inmates and spoke with an NGO and a Congolese official about the potential for a major Covid-19 health crisis.

While residents of Benin haven’t been ordered to stay home like their neighbours in Nigeria, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced them to slow down nevertheless, putting many at risk of food insecurity.

Madonna said Thursday she has recovered from the Covid-19 disease, which forced her to pull out of a string of concerts in Paris in February and March.

Economic activity in France picked up slightly over the last two weeks as the country prepares to emerge from a coronavirus lockdown, but it remains a third below normal levels, the INSEE official statistics agency said on Thursday.

For many farmers, the Covid-19 pandemic has been brutal with large orders cancelled and revenue plunging. But some small-scale farmers have noticed a rise in direct sales. FRANCE 24's Catherine Norris-Trent reports.

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Thursday detailed his government’s plan for easing Covid-19 confinement measures on May 11, warning that the exit from lockdown would be gradual and targeted to stem a resurgence of the viral outbreak. 

A German journalist has accused former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of repeatedly grabbing her during an interview, and filed a sexual assault complaint with Paris prosecutors, according to French and German news reports.

France on Thursday recorded 178 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, a 0.7 percent rise from the previous day in the lowest rate of increase in four days, taking the total number of deaths to 25,987. 

Since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, there has been no shortage of solidarity with those on the frontline on the pandemic. One such example comes from the French NGO Aviation Sans Frontières ("Aviation Without Borders"), which has brought together key players in the aviation sector to allow medical professionals to travel by plane free of charge from one French region to another. These flights help take some of the pressure off overwhelmed hospital staff. Our reporters Benoît Perrochais and Natalia Ruiz Giraldo went on board.

France on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day with President Emmanuel Macron attending a scaled-down ceremony on Paris’s Champs-Élysées. Click on the player to see how the commemorations unfolded.

France’s lockdown measures are among the strictest in Europe as the country bids to stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic. Paris is usually known for its night wanderers but the last few weeks has seen its lively and vibrant atmosphere replaced by calm and silence. However, not all Parisians are respecting lockdown measures and FRANCE 24 went out to meet them. Some are simply wandering the streets. Others are out and about because the streets are what they call home.

As France prepares to gradually end its Covid-19 lockdown on May 11, workers are busy installing dozens of kilometres of temporary bike lanes across Paris and surrounding suburbs, part of plans to prepare for – and encourage – an expected boom in cycling in the capital.

The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France rose 243 to 26,230 on Friday, a higher daily death toll than the previous day when it stood at 178.

An investigation by French daily Le Monde has uncovered the extraordinary chain of events that led successive French governments to build an ambitious pandemic response strategy and then dismantle it almost entirely, leaving the country dangerously exposed to the Covid-19 disease.

In this edition of Middle East Matters, we continue our rolling coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic across the region. Jordan is flattening its coronavirus curve after a series of strict measures, including travel bans. We speak to Health Minister Saad Jaber, himself a doctor, about how he's managed the crisis. Also, deadly clashes erupt after hundreds take to the streets in northern Lebanon amid a crash in the local currency and a surge in food prices. 

We continue our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Middle East. Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the region – authorities there have reported more than 6,000 deaths. But observers and health experts say the numbers are in reality much higher. After weighing up economic risks against health ones, the country's leadership decided to reopen businesses in late April, followed by schools and mosques. We speak to a doctor from Tehran, who has been on the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. He has asked for his identity to be concealed.

A third of people in the Afghan capital Kabul have tested positive for Covid-19, according to a recent study. FRANCE 24 spoke to Afghan doctors on the Covid-19 frontline as civil war continues to ravage the country.

A choice between lives and livelihoods? Iranian authorities have gradually been easing confinement since April 11, this in a nation hit early and hard by Covid-19. Did they have to reopen mosques? Could they afford to keep the sanctions-squeezed country in lockdown and risk a complete collapse of the economy or does opening it up make it worse? Already there are signs of a resurgence of coronavirus. The show features Sanam Shantyaei's exclusive interview with a frontline medic in Tehran while Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Behnam Ben Taleblu disagree on whether the US should ease sanctions.

After 76 days under lockdown, China's Wuhan city is gradually returning to a new normal. But while Covid-19 infection rates have fallen, social distancing measures are still in place and the economic repercussions for the industrial hub are also becoming clear.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill. 

South Korea returned largely to normal Wednesday as workers went back to offices, and museums and libraries reopened under eased social distancing rules after new coronavirus cases dropped to a trickle.

India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio's cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

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We’ve been through pandemic viruses before.  Most recently it was in 2014 when Fox News relentlessly beat the drums declaring that we were all going to die of the much more lethal Ebola virus.  And Fox & Friends regular guest Donald Trump was one of the loudest leaders of the opposition.  He declared without evidence that Barack Obama

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – February 28, 2020" →

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – March 5, 2020 So now it’s Obama’s fault. That is the latest claim from Trump and his team of sycophants, toadies and bootlickers.  The reason that the United States has fallen behind in the race to be able to test for the Coronavirus (or, as Trump refers to it, the Caronavirus) is

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – March 5, 2020" →

WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME? By Peter David What’s in a nickname? Presidential eras are oftentimes defined by their nicknames. Probably the most memorable one, off the top of my head, is that of John F. Kennedy.  After JFK was assassinated, his widow, Jackie Kennedy, commented in a Life magazine interview that he was particularly enamored of

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – March 13, 2020" →

You know, it occurs to me that I need to spell out something to the right wing blowhards who are still howling about Obama and Hillary rather than face the facts of the President’s incessant failures when it comes to managing the Coronavirus. When Trump was—well, not elected, but rather chosen by the Electoral college

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – March 27, 2020" →

The GOP has traditionally stood for Grand Old Party.   I think in the age of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, the initials should be changed.  The alteration should be made to reflect what the party has become.  Because the modern state of the Republicans would not be recognized by Ronald Reagan, although Richard Nixon would doubtless be

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – April 10, 2020" →

There are arguments that have been made contending Donald Trump is the anti-Christ.  I must admit, that’s a little outside of my realm of expertise.  But based upon this past week…indeed, this past year…I can certainly see the reasons for the contention. He’s certainly opposed to life.  That’s a given.  His constant ignoring of the early warnings which, had

Continue Reading "Freak Out Friday – April 23, 2020" →

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – May 1, 2020 I am so freaking sick of the hypocrisy on the right that it’s making me ill.  My stomach turns as these blathering blowhards put forth their idiotic, self-contradicting opinions as if they have any worth.  I am tired of these inconsistent blowhards rallying behind Trump in order to march this

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In the aftermath of writing his latest novel Spiked, author Jon McGoran found the reality of the moment catching up with the future of his fiction in ways he didn’t expect… and in ways that gave him food for thought. JON McGORAN: One of the things that has drawn me to science fiction since I was […]

Start with cinematic dreams and stellar ambitions, and what do you get from there? For Laura Lam, you get Goldilocks, her new novel. She’s here to tell you how it all came together. LAURA LAM: I love astronaut films. Gravity. Interstellar. The Martian. Armageddon. Ad Astra. The Mars TV show on Netflix that’s OK, not […]

I’m going to use this intro part of this Big Idea piece to say that the cover of The Down Days, by Ilze Hugo, is probably my favorite book cover of the year. To date! There might be a better one down the line! But I suspect not. And now here’s the author to tell […]

Psychologists have been measuring reaction times since before psychology existed, and they are still a staple of cognitive psychology experiments today. Typically psychologists look for a difference in the time it takes participants to respond to stimuli under different conditions as evidence of differences in how cognitive processing occurs in those conditions. Galton, the famous … Continue reading "Did the Victorians have faster reactions?"