schools

Hundreds of French high schools shut as protests persist

  • More than 400 out of France's 3,700 high schools, known as lycees, were partially or totally closed on Monday morning, the education ministry said.
  • French high-school students on Monday pressed on with a protest movement over learning conditions that has rocked the European nation since last week, with lessons disrupted at hundreds of schools.
  • More than 400 out of France's 3,700 high schools, known as lycees, were partially or totally closed on Monday morning, the education ministry said.
French high-school students on Monday pressed on with a protest movement over learning conditions that has rocked the European nation since last week, with lessons disrupted at hundreds of schools.
Students trickled into some schools despite ongoing protests outside their gates, ahead of a day of larger demonstrations expected on Tuesday.
Since late September, pupils have barred the entrances to hundreds of schools, complaining of teacher absences, overloaded timetables, dilapidated classrooms and buildings ill-adapted to rising temperatures, among other grievances.
The teenage discontent has erupted with just months to go before elections next year to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with the far right eyeing its best chance yet at seizing power.
The government has sought to address the grievances, while accusing hard-left activists of having hijacked the protest movement.
More than 400 out of France's 3,700 high schools, known as lycees, were partially or totally closed on Monday morning, the education ministry said.
A third of the 468 lycees for teenagers aged 15 to 17 were to be closed in the Paris region, authorities predicted on Sunday.
In the capital's central third district on Monday morning, dozens of teenage students chanted in protest, as passing cars honked their horns in support, while others made their way into class.
"No means, no silence," read one cardboard sign outside the Turgot high school.
 

'Not enough teachers'

 
In the western city of Rennes, more than 20 pupils gathered outside the Montaigne lycee, one clutching a sign that read "Not enough teachers", but staff allowed other students into their classrooms.
In Bordeaux, in the southwest, some students returned to the classroom while others continued to demonstrate, in the heavy presence of riot police.
Some protesters outside the Gustave Eiffel high school fired fireworks in the direction of the police, who responded with some tear gas, but overall the situation remained calm, AFP reporters said.
In the northern city of Lille, masked protesters destroyed bus shelters or set fire to dustbins, as police fired tear gas towards demonstrators.
The movement started on September 17 at a high school in the Paris suburb of Creteil, in support of teachers striking over a lack of staff and resources.
It gained momentum and spread across France, at times spiralling into vandalism, including the destruction of bus shelters, the burning of school entrances and clashes between protesters and security forces.
Since the start of the movement, 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked", according to the education minister.
More than 5,000 people, 85 percent of them minors, have been arrested.
Protesters have also accused the police of using disproportionate force, and internal investigations have been opened into at least three instances of alleged police brutality.
 

'Parental responsibility'

 
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term teacher absences and unfilled posts.
He called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country's often-dilapidated school buildings. 
The government is also hoping to pass through parliament a bill to make those who are responsible for damaging public property pay for repairs themselves, instead of drawing from taxpayer money. 
Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon defended the bill.
"When you have 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds who, at 9 am, are burning bus shelters or -- perhaps even more seriously -- the high school where they study, that raises the question of parental responsibility," she told Europe1/CNews broadcaster.
Lecornu has said the draft law, first presented before the protests, would allow these sums to be "taken from family allowances and housing benefits, while ensuring a minimum income is preserved".
The head of the main CGT labour union, Sophie Binet, slammed what she called a "populist announcement", which she said would "end up targeting the most vulnerable families".
burs-ah/ekf/yad

Global Edition

US-German trio wins medicine Nobel for work on optogenetics

BY PIA OHLIN

  • In 2021, Deisseroth and Hegemann won the Lasker Prize for their work in the field, often considered a precursor to the Nobel.
  • The Nobel medicine prize was awarded Monday to US psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Deisseroth and German scientists Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their pioneering work in the field of optogenetics.
  • In 2021, Deisseroth and Hegemann won the Lasker Prize for their work in the field, often considered a precursor to the Nobel.
The Nobel medicine prize was awarded Monday to US psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Deisseroth and German scientists Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their pioneering work in the field of optogenetics.
Optogenetics involves controlling nerve signals with light, and helps researchers understand how specific cell types contribute to behaviours like learning, fear, addiction and movement.
The trio were honoured "for their discovery of a molecular switch for nerve cells", the Nobel Assembly said.
Using light, researchers are now able to switch individual neural circuits on or off in a brain.
They have been able to reveal neural circuits governing specific memories, feelings, and behaviours relevant for neurological and psychiatric disorders.
In clinical medicine, the method is being used in attempts to restore sight in people with visual impairment, and may one day lead to treatments for disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.
"Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of," Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said in a statement.
"Optogenetics has fundamentally altered our understanding of the brain. Every day brings new discoveries, helping to solve one of humanity's great mysteries: how our incredible brain works," the Nobel Assembly said.
The secretary general of the assembly, Thomas Perlmann, told reporters he was able to reach the three laureates by phone to break the news.
"That was great to talk to them. I first called Deisseroth, he was very tired when he answered. He was definitely asleep, but he woke up," he said.
 

Illumination

 
In the early 2000s, Hegemann and Nagel were examining why a single-celled alga was able to swim toward a light source.
They discovered an algal protein with unique properties, called channelrhodopsin, found on the surface of the cell.
When illuminated by blue light, a channel opens through the protein.
Charged ions then flow into the cell, creating an electrical impulse. They found that any cell they put the protein in became light sensitive.
Deisseroth then introduced the gene for channelrhodopsin into nerve cells from rats.
By illuminating the cells with blue light, he was able to trigger a nerve signal.
He published his breakthrough in 2005, and two years later, made the light-controlled switch for nerve cells work in the brains of living mice.
In 2021, Deisseroth and Hegemann won the Lasker Prize for their work in the field, often considered a precursor to the Nobel.
Deisseroth, 54, is  a professor at Stanford University in the US, while Hegemann, 71, is a neuroscience professor at Humboldt University of Berlin. 
Nagel, 73, is a biophysics professor at the University of Wurzburg.
The Nobel prize for physics will be announced on Tuesday, followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday and the literature prize on Thursday.
Some pundits have suggested that for literature, the Swedish Academy could follow up last year's award to Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai with a woman writer, possibly from Central or Latin America.
Argentine author Samanta Schweblin, 48, could be one such pick, literary critic Lina Kalmteg told AFP.

All eyes on peace

 
Perhaps the most keenly anticipated award is that due on Friday, the peace prize -- the only Nobel to be awarded in Oslo.
This year, some experts have suggested the jury could choose a laureate who enjoys broad consensus, after last year's winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, stirred controversy.
Among possible laureates this year are a joint prize to Save the Children and Mykola Kuleba, a Ukrainian children's rights activist campaigning for the return of Ukrainian children illegally taken to Russia from occupied territories.
Others include Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms (ERR), a vast network of volunteers risking their lives to help people facing the double threat of war and hunger, and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) after the deadliest year on record for the profession in 2025.
The economics prize wraps up the Nobel season on October 12.
This year's laureates will receive their prizes -- a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2-million cheque -- on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize's creator, scientist Alfred Nobel.
bur-po/rlp

conflict

Three years on, Israeli rescuer cannot escape October 7

BY MICHAEL BLUM

  • True to his mission, Kenig got behind the steering wheel and raced towards the Gaza border in the early hours of October 7, 2023 after a colleague alerted him to what was happening.
  • Israeli rescuer Natan Kenig says it does not take much of a trigger for him to relive the October 7, 2023 attack: his eyes open or closed, at home or out with friends, he still sees the rockets, torched cars and lifeless bodies.
  • True to his mission, Kenig got behind the steering wheel and raced towards the Gaza border in the early hours of October 7, 2023 after a colleague alerted him to what was happening.
Israeli rescuer Natan Kenig says it does not take much of a trigger for him to relive the October 7, 2023 attack: his eyes open or closed, at home or out with friends, he still sees the rockets, torched cars and lifeless bodies.
"I saw atrocities. The most terrible things in the world," he said.
Three years after Hamas led the deadliest attack ever against Israel, Kenig, like so much of the country, remains traumatised. The flashbacks come daily, to the point that he has needed to see a therapist.
Outwardly, Kenig, with a sharp-featured face and salt-and-pepper beard, does not reveal his inner wounds. He retells his memories with an unflinching gaze.
"I wouldn't wish on anyone to see bodies burning in cars and to try to save them. It's inhumane," he told AFP.
It took a lot to shake up the 48-year-old. For three decades he has volunteered with Zaka, an Orthodox Jewish group that collects the remains of victims of violent deaths, down to their spilt blood, to fulfil Judaism's rule that the body be buried whole.
Famous for their rapid responses, the 3,000 members of Zaka are often the first to arrive on the scene of attacks or serious accidents and are trained to help survivors before tending to the dead.
True to his mission, Kenig got behind the steering wheel and raced towards the Gaza border in the early hours of October 7, 2023 after a colleague alerted him to what was happening.
"God and I found ourselves facing a row of burnt-out cars, the bodies of the people shot dead on the asphalt," he recounted.
"Suddenly, you enter another world, a world that has been frozen in time."

October 7 for four months

Kenig did not yet know the enormity of the attack when he found himself near the site of the Nova music festival, one of the sites of that day's mass killings.
More than 370 people were killed at the festival, which brought young revellers from around Israel. The attack killed 1,221 people in total, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In response, Israel launched a military offensive that has left most of Gaza in ruins and killed more than 74,200 people, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
When he arrived on the scene, Kenig threw himself into the task he knew: helping survivors, then combing the site to collect bodies, which were in harrowing conditions.
But looking back, he paused as he reflected on just how difficult it was to identify the victims, including people burnt in their cars or in their homes in the kibbutzim raided by Hamas.
From one car, he recalled collecting "a few hundred grams" of ash, along with a ring and a sliver of a charred phone, without knowing how many people had died inside.
"A month and a half later, four people were able to be identified and there were four burials," he said.
He continued collecting body remains through February 2024.
"For me, October 7 lasted four months," he said. 
But the horror of the task, even with his experience, finally made him crack. "A deep scar" is how he explained his mental state.

'I am alive'

On his social media accounts, the difference is striking: a face that was radiant in old pictures, now gone sullen.
This professional chef used to cook for private events, and specialised in smoked meats. "I brought joy to people through food," he said.
After seeing so many burnt bodies, the meat has lost its appeal and he has not been able to continue cooking. The trauma has also taken a toll on his social life.
"Sometimes I remember things that I saw there. It's not easy. You're sitting among people at the table eating and, suddenly, you just have to leave," he said.
But despite what he has been through, the devout Jew said he refuses to feel sorry for himself.
"I am alive. Thank you, God. I live and I want to live and I'll continue living, no matter how much that displeases those who want to destroy us," he said.
He took out his phone and scrolled old pictures. Among them remain hundreds of photos as well as videos of that dreadful day, a way for him to preserve evidence.
"It's important for me to bear witness," he said. "For the next generation. So that they make sure this never happens again."
mib/gkg/sct/amj/abs

racism

UK Green party adopts 'Zionism is racism' policy

  • "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people's right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel," Herzog said on X. Bridget Phillipson, chair of the ruling Labour Party and Minister for Women and Equalities, also condemned the Green Party's conference decision.
  • The UK's left-wing Green party voted Sunday to define Zionism as racism at the party's annual conference, drawing sharp backlash from three British Jewish groups, the ruling Labour Party and Israel's government.
  • "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people's right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel," Herzog said on X. Bridget Phillipson, chair of the ruling Labour Party and Minister for Women and Equalities, also condemned the Green Party's conference decision.
The UK's left-wing Green party voted Sunday to define Zionism as racism at the party's annual conference, drawing sharp backlash from three British Jewish groups, the ruling Labour Party and Israel's government.
Members of the Green party, which has five MPs in Britain's 650-seat parliament and which enjoyed a boost in recent local and special elections, backed the motion at the party's conference, with 1,022 votes in favour and 813 against.
Israel's foreign ministry, declaring the resolution "a clear antisemitic text," announced in retaliation Sunday evening that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar was barring the Green party's leader, Zack Polanski, from entering Israel.
According to the motion, Zionism would be "treated as any other form of racism" and the party supports the establishment of a "single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine".
"This has been a serious and deeply felt debate within our membership," a Green spokesperson said.
The Greens have enjoyed a surge in popularity under the charismatic leadership of Polanski, attracting voters dissatisfied with the centre-left Labour government's stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
However, Polanski's popularity has taken a hit in recent months, polls show, following several missteps.
"This motion would make the Green Party the first electorally significant UK political party in living memory to adopt what appears to be an overtly antisemitic political platform," three Jewish community groups said in a letter to the party ahead of the vote.
"We also emphasised the implications for the safety and welfare of all British Jews," the heads of the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust and Jewish Leadership Council warned.

Israel's anger

Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, called the Green party's decision "a disgrace".
"Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people's right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel," Herzog said on X.
Bridget Phillipson, chair of the ruling Labour Party and Minister for Women and Equalities, also condemned the Green Party's conference decision.
"It is shameful to vote against a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and to condemn the vast majority of British Jews and Jews around the world as racist for supporting Israel's right to exist," she said in a party statement.
The motion laid bare divisions in the party with Polanski -- who is currently running to become an MP in former prime minister Keir Starmer's London constituency -- skipping the vote.
Despite at least three out of five Green MPs opposing the motion, Polanski said earlier this week that the "displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people" was "clearly racism".
United Nations investigators have accused Israel of committing "genocide" in the war in Gaza, a finding that Israel has rejected.
bur-jj/mlm/jgc

schools

Hundreds of schools to shut Monday as student protests rock France

  • Lessons will be "totally or partly suspended" in some "400-500" high schools as the security conditions "have not been fulfilled", said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the start of the movement.
  • Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday because of a wave of student protests that has shaken the country, the education minister said.
  • Lessons will be "totally or partly suspended" in some "400-500" high schools as the security conditions "have not been fulfilled", said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the start of the movement.
Up to 500 schools across France will be totally or partly closed on Monday because of a wave of student protests that has shaken the country, the education minister said.
Lessons will be "totally or partly suspended" in some "400-500" high schools as the security conditions "have not been fulfilled", said Education Minister Edouard Geffray on Sunday, adding that 24 schools had been "burned or ransacked" since the start of the movement.
He described the closures as chiefly a security precaution ahead of large-scale protests that the leaders of the movement have called for Tuesday.
The teenagers at French high schools, known as lycees, say that their studies are being ruined by high teacher absence rates, overlong school days and dilapidated facilities, as well as other grievances.
Geffray said the number of schools affected on Monday would be comparable to the figure from Friday but vowed there would be a "partial, progressive return to lessons".
More than a third of the 468 schools in the wider Ile-de-France region surrounding the capital will be shut on Monday as a result of the protests, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing president of the region, told broadcaster Franceinfo.
The movement began at a Paris school on September 17 but grew last week into nationwide protests marked in places by outbursts of violence involving teenagers and the security forces, which have used tear gas and truncheons against the students.

'Deliberately targeted'

At Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, students took turns expressing their grievances at an open-air meeting Sunday.
When you are a student from one of the deprived districts, said one student, "The violence is unleashed."
She referred in particular to one student who had lost his teeth to a police rubber bullet and another who had been hit in the eye.
One 16-year-old boy, Campion, held a placard that read: "They say they are listening to us but prefer to gas us".
"I don't understand why the government deploys so much force against a case that is valid: our education, our future," he told AFP.
Geffray, in his statement, spoke of far-left infiltrators who had "hijacked' the movement "and engaged in extreme violence".
"Clearly, this poses a risk to both our staff and our students," he said, adding that 78 education staff members had been injured.
"They were deliberately targeted because they were employees of the national education system," Geffray said. 
Organisers have called for the protests to continue on Tuesday, citing a lack of "concrete measures" from the government.
In a bid to address the protesters' concerns, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu set out a timetable on Sunday urging local authorities to prioritise filling gaps left by long-term absences and unfilled posts.
He also called a meeting for Tuesday with regional presidents to discuss overhauling the country's often-dilapidated school buildings. 

Violent incidents

More than 5,000 people, 85 percent of them minors, have been arrested since the start of the movement.
A 16-year-old was detained on Sunday over the assault of a teacher in the southern town of La Ciotat. The teacher, 59, was struck and doused with gasoline on the sidelines of a high school student protest on Friday.
A group of youths were last week filmed beating and kicking a policeman on the ground in Belfort in eastern France in images that caused an outcry among officials.
Two youths, Bulgarian nationals aged 15 and 17, have been arrested and investigated for suspected aggravated violence, the prosecutor said.
One of the youths, whom the policeman had tried to arrest before being beaten, has now filed his own attempted murder complaint, his lawyer said.
The France branch of Amnesty last week slammed "disproportionate police violence" in tackling the demonstrations and said students must be allowed to express their grievances.
"Authorities must allow young people to exercise these rights without fear of being hit by tear gas grenades or batons, or being arbitrarily taken into police custody," said Amnesty France president Anne Savinel-Barras.
But Interior Minister Laurent Nunez stated that security forces "are not cracking down on young people" but rather "protecting" school and university students wishing to "peacefully voice their demands".
bur-sbk-jj/sbk

execution

US prison chief who oversaw botched execution resigns

BY ANITA CHANG BEATTIE

  • The case had already attracted attention in the lead-up to the execution date as Pike would have been the first woman put to death by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.
  • The prison chief in the southern US state of Tennessee has resigned, the governor said Saturday, after an unprecedented botched execution left a convicted murderer on a ventilator in critical condition.
  • The case had already attracted attention in the lead-up to the execution date as Pike would have been the first woman put to death by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.
The prison chief in the southern US state of Tennessee has resigned, the governor said Saturday, after an unprecedented botched execution left a convicted murderer on a ventilator in critical condition.
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will leave his post this month, Governor Bill Lee said in a statement.
Christa Pike, 50, on Wednesday survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital, a drug that suppresses nervous system activity.
Media witnesses listened to her snoring for about an hour after being administered the deadly doses, and said she was alive as they were ushered out of the execution chamber viewing area at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Pike was taken to a hospital where she was "critically ill," unconscious and on a ventilator as medical staff worked to clear the pentobarbital from her system, her lawyers said in a court filing Friday.
Lee said he thanked Strada for "his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment."
In the same statement, Strada said: "I continue to believe the Department (of Correction) carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol."
Lee, who previously denied Pike clemency, has halted further executions through the rest of the year pending a "comprehensive, third-party review."

Caustic

Pike's legal team had previously objected to the execution's IV protocol, saying it would have caused needless suffering due to her small veins and a blood condition.
Lawyer Randy Spivey has said he saw seven needles used in just Pike's left arm as execution staff tried to start an IV line, "one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt."
Medical experts had warned of needles becoming dislodged or piercing through the vein, causing lethal drugs to flow into Pike's arm instead of the bloodstream, lawyer Stephen Ferrell has said.
The court filing described pentobarbital as a caustic substance that burns skin, tissue and veins. Upon arrival at the hospital, both of Pike's arms were "swollen, burned, and blistered," it said.
Media witnesses said Pike told execution staff after receiving the lethal injection that her arm felt like it would "burst open."
The Death Penalty Information Center, which publishes data and analysis on capital punishment in the United States, said Pike was the first inmate ever to survive "after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs."
Her case had sparked debate over capital punishment for young criminals, as she was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp.
The 1995 killing gained national attention after Slemmer's body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.
Pike's lawyers had argued for clemency due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of Slemmer's killing. They also cited her history of childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The case had already attracted attention in the lead-up to the execution date as Pike would have been the first woman put to death by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.
In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
dw/sst/acb/jgc

paprika

Hungary's dwindling paprika producers battle to save signature spice

BY ANDRAS ROSTOVANYI

  • "I was absolutely convinced that we'd have to take on part-time jobs because they'd burn out," Pajsan Nagy, 44, told AFP, while selling her family's products at the annual town fair in Kalocsa, in southern Hungary.
  • Working from before dawn until midnight, farmers Nikoletta Pajsan Nagy and Laszlo Pajsan fought Europe's driest summer ever to save their red pepper harvest in Hungary.
  • "I was absolutely convinced that we'd have to take on part-time jobs because they'd burn out," Pajsan Nagy, 44, told AFP, while selling her family's products at the annual town fair in Kalocsa, in southern Hungary.
Working from before dawn until midnight, farmers Nikoletta Pajsan Nagy and Laszlo Pajsan fought Europe's driest summer ever to save their red pepper harvest in Hungary.
Unable to irrigate much of their two-and-a-half-hectare (six-acre) land because power lines run across it, they repeatedly loosened the soil around the plants, which are used to make the central European country's signature spice, paprika.
"I was absolutely convinced that we'd have to take on part-time jobs because they'd burn out," Pajsan Nagy, 44, told AFP, while selling her family's products at the annual town fair in Kalocsa, in southern Hungary.
"But somehow the crop turned out bigger and more beautiful than in previous years. It was a miracle," she said, recalling some 20-hour days in the field.
The couple see themselves as a dwindling profession, as cultivation of paprika -- an indispensable ingredient in traditional cuisine -- has declined over the past several decades in Hungary, with many small producers going out of business.
 

Squeezing producers

 
The area devoted to paprika peaked at 13,029 hectares in 1979 and had fallen to 1,410 hectares by 2024, according to official statistics.
While cheap imports from China and parts of South America are squeezing producers, climate change is making paprika production more difficult and costly, according to Robert Braj, an adviser at Dutch-owned BWA Kft, one of Hungary's top food-seasoning manufacturers.
"There are longer droughts, more extreme heatwaves, while new pests and diseases are spreading," Braj told AFP.
Along with some other EU nations, Hungary experienced its driest summer since records began in 1901 and its second-hottest on record, according to national weather service HungaroMet. 
Labour shortages are also a problem.
At the fair, paprika seller Agnes Toth recalled picking up peppers as a child, taking part in the family business.
"Back then, we grew paprika on six hectares. Now it's around three hectares because there aren't enough seasonal workers to harvest it by hand," the 44-year-old told AFP.
"A family couldn't make a living from this anymore... Everyone has a full-time job. I'm a teacher, my brother is a firefighter," she said.
Hungary's Agriculture and Food Economy Ministry told AFP it seeks to strengthen producers' competitiveness, but it is yet to announce any new measures.
 

'A wonder'

 
At last month's annual fair in Kalocsa, one of Hungary's main paprika-growing regions, the aroma of meat stews and fish soups laced with the vibrant scarlet spice filled the air as teams poured generous amounts into their cauldrons at a cooking contest.
"For us Hungarians, paprika is a wonder," one of the competitors, local fast-food restaurant owner Imre Zseni said, while stirring a beef stew.
Booths were adorned with strings of dried red peppers -- the raw ingredient used to make paprika -- recalling a sight once common on houses in the surrounding countryside every autumn.
Originating from the Americas, peppers found their way to Hungary's sun-drenched, fertile river plains around Kalocsa and Szeged in the 16th century.
The two historic paprika-production centres are now recognised with the EU's protected designation of origin status.
Ethnographer Imre Romsics said paprika became an important symbol of Hungarian identity during the 19th century, "alongside costume, folk art and other traditions".
But younger generations cook fewer traditional Hungarian recipes, and they prefer food "that is faster and easier to prepare," according to specialist Braj.
ros/jza/cms

Google

Finnish town braces for change from Google data centres

BY ANNA KORKMAN

  • The planned data centres are part of an announced 13-billion-euro ($15-billion) investment in Finland over the next two years -- the US tech giant's single biggest investment in Europe.
  • In the northern Finnish town of Muhos, 36-year-old farmer Joni Pitkanen is preparing for life with a new neighbour -- just kilometers away, tech giant Google is planning to build new data centres.
  • The planned data centres are part of an announced 13-billion-euro ($15-billion) investment in Finland over the next two years -- the US tech giant's single biggest investment in Europe.
In the northern Finnish town of Muhos, 36-year-old farmer Joni Pitkanen is preparing for life with a new neighbour -- just kilometers away, tech giant Google is planning to build new data centres.
The planned data centres are part of an announced 13-billion-euro ($15-billion) investment in Finland over the next two years -- the US tech giant's single biggest investment in Europe.
A few kilometers down the gravel road that passes by Pitkanen's farm, the forest has already been cut down on land acquired by Google, with excavators now clearing the ground and rumbling trucks shuttling back and forth to the construction area located next to major power lines.
"The project is so massive that it's basically hard to really grasp, even though we're right here on the sidelines," Pitkanen said, as a few cows dozed in a meadow in front of the barn.
Google's expansion plans include the Finnish municipalities of Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala as well as Hamina, where it already operates a data centre. 
The massive investment prompted US President Donald Trump to urge Google to rethink its plans in a message on his Truth Social network. 
Pitkanen said he was so far "fairly positive" about the project, as it will bring "large-scale business activity" and "life" to the rural municipality with a population of only around 8,800 people.
"But of course we are concerned about... how we can prepare for the energy consumption," he added.
In his office in the small village centre, Muhos mayor Kimmo Hinno told AFP that Google's "massive investment" kept him busy these days as "no industry of this type" existed here at present.
"This will completely change the situation for the entire municipality and the Oulu region," he said, adding that he expected "thousands of workers" of different nationalities during the construction period -- who will need both housing and other services. 
Outside a grocery store, 60-year-old nurse Aila Heilima said she hoped the investment would "motivate young people to stay" in Muhos for work, instead of moving to bigger towns in search of job opportunities.
 
– Mounting criticism – 
 
But Google's plans have already sparked controversy. 
The Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV) is currently investigating whether company Tuike Finland, which represents Google, had cleared more than 300 hectares of forest in Muhos without a mandatory environmental impact assessment.
"In our view, operations at this construction site should be suspended until it is clarified whether the project is in compliance with the law," Hanna Halmeenpaa, chair of the board of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, who filed the request with the agency, told AFP at the edge of the deforested area. 
"From the satellite images, we've seen that nature sites which should be preserved have also been logged," she added, explaining that the size of the clear-cut area was comparable to 420 football fields. 
Google, meanwhile, told AFP in an email that "tree felling activities have been taking place in compliance with Forestry Act requirements" and they "were awaiting further guidance from LVV on this matter."
"We have conducted extensive nature surveys covering the entire area as part of the zoning and Environmental Impact Assessment processes, to ensure high-value nature zones within the sites have been protected during forestry works," said Sondre Ronander, communications manager for Google in Finland. 
 

Call for regulation

 
Finland has seen a spike in data centre investments, with its cool climate and relatively stable and cheap electricity that is mostly produced without fossil fuels thanks to nuclear plants as well as extensive wind and hydro power. 
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's right-wing government has prioritised attracting data centre investments to the Nordic country, which is grappling with record-high unemployment and sluggish economic growth.
But, as dozens of the energy guzzling centres are now under construction and many more planned by companies including Microsoft and TikTok, uncertainty around energy prices, grid capacity and environmental effects have sparked a public debate in Finland. 
A citizen's initiative demanding stricter regulation regarding data centre energy use and consequences for the environment gathered more than 50,000 signatures in just three days after it opened, meaning it will have to be reviewed by parliament.
ank/jll/po/rl/cms

children

Without lawyers, migrant children face deportation from the US

BY MOISéS ÁVILA

  • - Babies in court - She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts.
  • A one-year-old toddler stumbles around an immigration court in Louisiana, crying.
  • - Babies in court - She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts.
A one-year-old toddler stumbles around an immigration court in Louisiana, crying. He throws a toy that nearly hits a prosecutor. 
The judge instructs the baby and his mother, age 17, to apply for asylum. But the teenager can barely focus on what he is saying. 
Roxana Avila-Cimpeanu, deputy director of a group that provides legal support for unaccompanied minors, described this scene, which she witnessed in August.
"This child is being expected to file her own application, also figure out how to file things for her one-year-old baby, while living through the distress of being a detained young mother," Avila-Cimpeanu told AFP.
President Donald Trump's administration has choked off funding for organizations that have years of experience assisting unaccompanied minors, bringing in substitutes that are under-equipped and unqualified, advocates say.
"We are gravely concerned that ORR would entrust a vulnerable population with firms so plainly unqualified for the task," Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the Deportment of Health and Human Services this week.
ORR is the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency traditionally tasked with the care of unaccompanied minor migrants.
The category describes children who arrive in the United States without an adult, or whose parents were detained by immigration agents and are in shelters or government custody.

'Attack on children'

Since he returned to the White House for his second term in January 2025, President Donald Trump has a mounted an aggressive and sometimes violent operation to deport undocumented immigrants from the United States.
Last year the administration tried to cut off funding that ORR used to support a national network of organizations that have for years provided legal services to unaccompanied migrant minors.
Following a lawsuit, the measure was blocked by a federal judge who ordered that the services, which were mandated by a 2008 law, be maintained.
Months later, the government stopped making payments, and in July 2026, it allowed a contract with the Acacia Center for Justice -- which managed a network of about 100 organizations -- to expire.
Avila-Cimpeanu told AFP that in late 2025 that the government made funding contingent on the release of confidential information about some 20,000 children represented by the network -- "and we did not do so."
The government then announced plans to hand the cases over to the Burke Law Group, run by a former Trump administration official, but that firm withdrew its bid.
It then planned to deploy Our Rescue, an organization founded by a controversial anti-trafficking activist and led by a former investigator for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The contract was put on hold following questions raised in Congress, amid a review of federal funds allocated for this purpose.
"Children's legal protections should never be the currency Of political patronage," Democratic lawmakers said in their letter.
Avila-Cimpeanu says the administration is trying to complicate the defense of minors "in order to get to their goal of deporting as many children as quickly as possible."
"I have been doing this work for 10 years, and this is the worst time that I've ever seen with regard to the government's concerted attack on children," she said.

Babies in court

She said it is common for unaccompanied minors to appear in immigration courts. That is why a lawyer who understands the issue -- and even speaks the child's language if it is not English -- is necessary.
Avila-Cimpeanu recalled a case in 2018 when her organization was in court on behalf of a baby just months old.
"We had to say: this baby denies the allegations. This baby would like voluntary departure.
"It's ridiculous that children have to go through this process as if they were adults, but it is part of the proceeding."
This week, CNN reported that 25 migrant children, several without a lawyer, had a hearing in a Texas court.
In a statement to AFP, ORR said that in August it provided funding through the end of the year for the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) to appear at immigration hearings.
"USCRI is appearing at 100 percent of the hearings and has expanded to provide legal orientation, legal consultations and direct representation," it said.
Bilal Askaryar, a spokesman for Acacia, explained that USCRI is a small organization with about 50 attorneys, compared to the 800 in Acacia’s network.
"This isn't about a contract for us. This isn't about a dispute between an organization and the government. This is about 20,000 children who came to the United States seeking safety," he said.
mav/ksb/dw

housing

Protests over housing flare in Spain after relief measures rejected

BY MARTIN DE MONTVALON

  • Valeria Racu, one of the spokespeople of the Tenants' Union organising the protest, said in a statement that the last eight days' protests had shown the effectiveness of people's power.
  • Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities in Spain on Saturday to demand affordable housing, a day after lawmakers rejected relief measures for tenants.
  • Valeria Racu, one of the spokespeople of the Tenants' Union organising the protest, said in a statement that the last eight days' protests had shown the effectiveness of people's power.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities in Spain on Saturday to demand affordable housing, a day after lawmakers rejected relief measures for tenants.
The demonstrations extended a crisis that has gone on for more than a week, triggered by the eviction last month of a pensioner, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, from her Madrid flat.
The defeat was another political setback for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and has renewed questions over whether his minority government can survive until the next scheduled general election in 2027.
His government's proposed measures, which included automatic renewal of tenancy contracts and restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants, were voted down by opposition parties on Friday in Spain's parliament.
The defeat infuriated those protesting the country's increasingly expensive housing market.
Hundreds of protesters have been occupying a tent city set up a week ago in the heart of Madrid to press for reforms.
Late on Saturday groups of far-right protesters, some of them performing Nazi salutes, tried to get to the camp but were blocked by police.
One video posted on the website of Spanish daily El Pais showed police chasing some members of the group through the streets and the newspaper also reported that officers had made three arrests.
 
- General strike call - 
 
Earlier Saturday, demonstrators marched through the capital's streets. Authorities said 70,000 people participated, but the organisers put the figure at 500,000.
Smaller demonstrations took place in other cities, including Palma de Mallorca, Santander, Segovia and Toledo. In Valencia, five people were arrested after clashes with police, local media reported.
At the Madrid protest Marcos Sainz, a librarian of 26, said he used to rent a two-bedroom apartment with friends for a total monthly rent of 900 euros ($1,000). Today, a one-bedroom flat often costs 1,000 euros -- or half the median monthly salary in the capital, he told AFP.
He would protest rental spikes "until someone dares to regulate it all as (otherwise) we'll all have to leave Madrid and that would be a shame as I am from Madrid". 
"We are demanding a fundamental right," said Javier, a 31-year-old solar panel installer. "Decent housing, stability and conditions allowing us to construct a decent life project.
"I spend half of my salary on a tiny room," he added.
Valeria Racu, one of the spokespeople of the Tenants' Union organising the protest, said in a statement that the last eight days' protests had shown the effectiveness of people's power.
"Now begins real politics -- politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets," she added.
She repeated her union's call for a general strike.
 

Calls for early election

 
Housing has for years been a top concern for Spaniards as supply falls short of demand, with rents and house prices rising as elsewhere in the European Union.
Average rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade, while asking prices for homes have risen by about 90 percent, according to real estate website Idealista.
Abascal's eviction catalysed long-running anger about runaway housing costs.
The pensioner was forced to leave the Madrid flat where she had lived for more than seven decades after it was acquired by an investment company that sought to increase her rent by 275 percent, say housing campaigners.
The backlash led the property's new owners to reach a deal allowing her to return to the flat at a low rent.
The housing bills Sanchez's leftist coalition had presented to parliament were rejected after the Catalan separatist party Junts -- on whose support the government relies -- voted against them, arguing they lacked rigour.
Junts joined the main opposition Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party in shooting down the measures.
PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo on Saturday urged Sanchez to call early elections "because the country can't take any more".
Recent opinion polls have generally placed the Popular Party ahead of the Socialists.
bur/jj/giv

education

#IAmJaneDoe: online support campaign in US university rape case

  • Some US media outlets have compared the wave of online support to the #MeToo movement in 2017, when millions of women took to social media to share stories of sexual assault and harassment following revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
  • Thousands of American women have taken to social media to support the alleged victim of a gang rape at an elite US university, in a case that sparked a national outcry, after a political commentator threatened to reveal her identity.
  • Some US media outlets have compared the wave of online support to the #MeToo movement in 2017, when millions of women took to social media to share stories of sexual assault and harassment following revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Thousands of American women have taken to social media to support the alleged victim of a gang rape at an elite US university, in a case that sparked a national outcry, after a political commentator threatened to reveal her identity.
Messages of support with the hashtag #IAmJaneDoe -- a pseudonym commonly used in the US legal system to protect a person's identity -- have proliferated on TikTok, X and Instagram since a man named Michael Tracey asked people to help him find the former Cornell University student in order to "evaluate her veracity."
In a symbolic gesture, women wrote posts and made videos claiming to be the alleged victim, in a bid to make it harder to identify her and defend the right of sexual assault victims to remain anonymous.
"He is trying to expose her identity, we won't let him," one young woman says on TikTok in a video viewed over 4 million times. "I am Jane Doe."
In her lawsuit, the woman says that in 2024, when she was 20, she was drugged with ketamine, assaulted and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, a social club for male students.
Authorities initially declined to press charges, but the investigation was reopened Monday, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul later appointing the state's top prosecutor to see it through.
The outrage soon spread beyond the Cornell case, fueling a broader debate over sexual violence on US college campuses -- from fraternity culture and the conditions that can enable abuse to institutional responses often criticized as inadequate.
Some US media outlets have compared the wave of online support to the #MeToo movement in 2017, when millions of women took to social media to share stories of sexual assault and harassment following revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
In a post earlier this week, which has been viewed almost seven million times, Tracey, who has nearly 350,000 followers on X, urged his followers to out the victim.
"Let's see if anyone has the "balls" to name this Jane Doe so we can all evaluate her veracity, and that of her lawyers, since her lawsuit didn't hesitate to name & shame 7 of her peers as gang-rapists," he wrote.
He later added: "If you happen to know who this Cornell "Jane Doe" is, get in touch and I would be happy to publish her name and identifying information."
Following the rape allegations, Cornell shut down the fraternity and temporarily suspended the students allegedly involved, several of whom were later expelled.
Local authorities said they declined to prosecute in 2024 because the complainant's testimony did not establish a lack of consent.
In the United States, one in four female undergraduates reported forced sexual contact or sexual contact for which they could not consent, according to a 2020 study of 33 institutions by the Association of American Universities.
llb/md/dw

NMacedonia

Bulgaria's Tsar Samuel returns 'home' after 1,000 years

BY ROSSEN BOSSEV WITH DORETEYA DACHKOVA

  • In exchange for the remains, Greece is to receive 48 objects pillaged by Bulgarian troops from churches and monasteries in northern Greece during World War I.   - 'Where he belongs' -   Martin Nestorov, a 42-year-old software engineer, told AFP he attended the ceremony "to welcome Tsar Samuel back to Bulgaria, where he belongs". 
  • More than 1,000 years after his death, the remains of what may be Tsar Samuel, one of the last major rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire, returned "home" on Saturday.
  • In exchange for the remains, Greece is to receive 48 objects pillaged by Bulgarian troops from churches and monasteries in northern Greece during World War I.   - 'Where he belongs' -   Martin Nestorov, a 42-year-old software engineer, told AFP he attended the ceremony "to welcome Tsar Samuel back to Bulgaria, where he belongs". 
More than 1,000 years after his death, the remains of what may be Tsar Samuel, one of the last major rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire, returned "home" on Saturday.
Greece and Bulgaria reached an agreement on their return this week, with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev hailing the accord as "historic".
After a handover ceremony in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, the remains arrived in Sofia and were carried in a flag-draped coffin through the Bulgarian capital by a guard of honour. 
Crowds of onlookers cheered and fighter jets performed a flypast as the remains were taken to be laid in state in the Church of Saint Sofia, a 6th-century basilica that gave its name to the city.
In a speech to the crowds, Radev expressed his "deepest gratitude to (Greek Prime Minister) Kyriakos Mitsotakis for the wisdom and courage that led to this historic agreement" to return the remains.
The deal "further strengthens the strategic partnership, friendship and trust between our two countries", he added. 
A 21-gun salute rang out across the square where the ceremony took place as he finished speaking.
In exchange for the remains, Greece is to receive 48 objects pillaged by Bulgarian troops from churches and monasteries in northern Greece during World War I.
 

'Where he belongs'

 
Martin Nestorov, a 42-year-old software engineer, told AFP he attended the ceremony "to welcome Tsar Samuel back to Bulgaria, where he belongs". 
Tsanka Zlatkova, 65, a retired art historian, added: "I am here because I am Bulgarian, and a Bulgarian is returning to his homeland."
Samuel, who reigned from 997 to 1014, led several campaigns against the Byzantine Empire with his brothers, one of whom he later executed.
He gradually extended his authority over a swathe of the Balkans, making the Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid region, now mostly in North Macedonia, his powerbase.
But the Byzantines regained the upper hand after 1001, soundly defeating Samuel's army in 1014.
Samuel is said to have died of shock when he saw thousands of his defeated soldiers returning home blinded on the orders of Byzantine emperor Basil II, known as the "Bulgar Slayer".
Samuel's state fell under Byzantine rule four years later.
While Radev said future generations would now be able to pay homage to their ancestors, Mitsotakis hailed the remains as having "incalculable cultural and spiritual but also emotional value".
 

Competing claims

 
But Bulgaria is not the only country to have claims on Samuel, with a huge statue of the tsar standing in the North Macedonian capital Skopje.
His legacy has become a bone of contention between the two neighbours, with Macedonians claiming him as "their" ruler.
Some historians have likened the dispute to the French and German tug-of-war over Charlemagne.
In 2022, a bilateral commission recommended presenting Samuel as the head of a state that "most contemporary historiographers consider to be the Bulgarian Empire", based in what is currently North Macedonia.
The supposed remains of Samuel were discovered by Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos in the 1960s.
Moutsopoulos led excavations on the Greek island of Saint Achilleios on Little Prespa Lake near the border between Greece and Albania and not far from the frontier with North Macedonia.
They found the skeleton of a man measuring about 1.6 metres (5 feet 3 inches), along with remnants of a rich silk fabric edged with gold and decorated with bird motifs.
The attribution to Samuel is based on clues including the location of the tomb, the sumptuousness of the garment, the age of the deceased and an old fracture.
Bulgaria officially opened talks on the return of the remains in 2007, and they became a major issue in relations with Greece.
The deal this week also sparked a row in Bulgaria over who should claim the credit, with history playing a major role in this month's presidential election.
Incumbent Iliana Iotova, backed by Radev and promoting ties both with Moscow and the EU and NATO, is playing the patriotic card, having launched her campaign in Veliki Preslav, former capital of the First Bulgarian Empire.
rb-frj-sr/rmb
 
 
 

education

NY governor vows to close loophole after alleged Cornell gang rape

BY RAPHAëLLE PELTIER

  • And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug," Hochul said Friday.
  • New York Governor Kathy Hochul vowed Friday to close a legal loophole that makes it harder to prosecute rape cases if the victims were willingly intoxicated, amid an uproar over an alleged gang rape at Cornell University.
  • And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug," Hochul said Friday.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul vowed Friday to close a legal loophole that makes it harder to prosecute rape cases if the victims were willingly intoxicated, amid an uproar over an alleged gang rape at Cornell University.
The accuser in that case has filed a civil lawsuit over the alleged 2024 attack at the Ivy League school, casting a harsh spotlight on a decision by prosecutors not to file any criminal charges at the time.
The investigation into the incident was reopened on Monday, and Hochul has appointed state Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor, as anger mounts over allegations that Cornell failed to properly hold the men accountable.
In her civil suit, the woman says she was drugged with ketamine, assaulted and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, a social club for male students.
"It should not matter whether they chose to use drugs or alcohol. Voluntary intoxication is not a license for sexual assault or gang rape. Period," Hochul said Friday.
"I support closing this loophole, and will work with the New York state legislature to accomplish this."
Several US states, including New York, have provisions in their laws making it harder for prosecutors to bring charges against someone who engaged in sex with a person who voluntarily became intoxicated to the point where they could not meaningfully give -- or withhold -- consent.
"It's just astounding that this loophole still exists," Shiwali Patel, the senior director of education justice at the National Women's Law Center, told AFP.
"It does have a huge impact on college cases because the reality is that a significant majority of campus sexual assaults do involve alcohol and drugs."
In the United States, one in four female undergraduates reported forced sexual contact or sexual contact for which they could not consent, according to a 2020 study of 33 institutions by the Association of American Universities.

'Deeply disturbed'

Hochul slammed how the initial investigation into the complainant's claims unfolded at Cornell, which is located in Ithaca in central New York state.
"She sat for hours and told (police) exactly what happened to her. And according to new reports, she could not have been clearer that she was 100 percent confident that she had been raped," Hochul said.
"In what world would the police learn from a victim that she'd been literally gang-raped while intoxicated... in the fraternity house, and not elevate those allegations to the district attorney?"
James, a Democrat who has clashed repeatedly with US President Donald Trump, said Friday she would "review the facts, gather evidence, interview witnesses, and if warranted, pursue prosecutions."
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said this week that he planned to file criminal charges against the seven men.
He said his office declined to prosecute in 2024 because the complainant's testimony did not establish a lack of consent.
Following the allegations, Cornell shut down the fraternity and temporarily suspended the students allegedly involved, several of whom were later expelled.
Lawyer Thomas Giuffra, who represents the alleged victim, told CBS News that his client was "incapable of consent" because she was "completely, grossly intoxicated" when she arrived at the frat house.
"I'm more and more convinced there was a cover-up" to protect the university's reputation, Giuffra added.
Cornell's student body held a campus meeting Thursday at which emotions ran high.
Speakers repeatedly attacked college administrators for their handling of the case, which has garnered nationwide attention.
"No public official gets to look the other way when the system breaks down and fails our young people. And as governor, I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug," Hochul said Friday.
"I am deeply disturbed by Cornell University's police and how they handled this."
In Washington, Trump lashed out at James's involvement as special prosecutor, saying: "I feel badly for whoever she's looking at, because they won't get a fair shake."
pel-gw/hol/ane

execution

Botched US execution leaves murderer unconscious on ventilator: lawyers

BY PAUL BLAKE

  • "After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.
  • Convicted US murderer Christa Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator after a botched attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers said in a court filing Friday.
  • "After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.
Convicted US murderer Christa Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator after a botched attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers said in a court filing Friday.
After a dramatic day of legal wrangling, prison officials in Tennessee on Wednesday injected two deadly doses of the highly toxic drug pentobarbital into Pike for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.
But witnesses said that the 50-year-old Pike remained awake longer than expected and was later heard "loudly snoring" before an ambulance rushed her to a nearby hospital.
As of Thursday evening, "Ms. Pike remains critically ill and is being treated at a Nashville-area hospital," her lawyer Luke Ihnen wrote in a filing with a Tennessee court.
"She is intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious," he added. 
The lawyer said medics were "working to save Ms. Pike's life" after she arrived with both arms "swollen, burned, and blistered."
In a separate filing with a federal appeals court, Pike's legal team wrote that when the execution had gone awry and they had asked a court to halt it, attorneys for the state argued that the department of corrections "had no obligation to render life-saving care" to Pike.
Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, who was among the witnesses, angrily told a local news outlet that the "state owes me a big apology," and that it had failed her family.
Martinez, who now lives in Florida and raised money to travel to Tennessee, told WJXX television: "All I wanted was justice."

Execution moratorium

The Tennessee Department of Corrections said earlier this week that it "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol."
But the state's Republican governor, Bill Lee, who previously denied Pike clemency, halted further executions through the rest of the year while a review is conducted.
Pike's was the second failed execution in Tennessee this year. The state halted the execution by lethal injection of Tony Carruthers in May after medical staff were unable to tap a vein.
"After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty. The governor must commute Christa's sentence now," Pike lawyer Randy Spivey said earlier this week.
Pike's lawyers had argued she should be granted clemency due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of Slemmer's killing. They also cited her history of childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder.
"This event is the worst we've seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era," Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told The New York Times. 
"There is no precedent."
US President Donald Trump questioned how an execution like Pike's could fail, telling reporters that it "shouldn't be very difficult," while UN rights chief Volker Turk urged Tennessee not to make a new attempt to execute Pike.
Had the drugs killed Pike, she would have been the first woman executed by the state in more than two centuries.
In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
pnb/sst

politics

New rallies urged in France as protests disrupt over 730 schools

BY FREDERIC BOURIGAULT, ULRIKE KOLTERMANN AND STUART WILLIAMS

  • In the western city of Brest, police used tear gas at the Kerichen high school as pupils hurled projectiles at security forces, an AFP photographer said.
  • French high school students on Friday lit fires and hurled projectiles at police who responded by firing tear gas, as activists urged new rallies in an escalating protest movement demanding better conditions in education.
  • In the western city of Brest, police used tear gas at the Kerichen high school as pupils hurled projectiles at security forces, an AFP photographer said.
French high school students on Friday lit fires and hurled projectiles at police who responded by firing tear gas, as activists urged new rallies in an escalating protest movement demanding better conditions in education.
The government says that the pupils in their mid-to-late-teens studying in lycees have every right to air grievances but has condemned violence which has included a policeman being chased, kicked and beaten by a group of youths.
In La Ciotat in southern France, a teacher was sprayed with petrol before being physically assaulted by two individuals, officials said.
A young man wounded in Tours lost the use of his right eye, the city's prosecutor said Friday. He was injured on Wednesday as students clashed with police, said the local prefecture.
On Friday, unions and student groups urged protesters to keep up the pressure on the government and stage new rallies on Tuesday.
"High school students are expecting concrete measures from this government, and so far we have not received them," said Ryad Rani, head of the USL high school union.
The movement, which began in the Paris region in September and spread nationwide, has seen teenage pupils at lycees in their final years of schooling block access to buildings and clash with police. 
The students say their school hours are excessively long, conditions inadequate including overheated classrooms, and that there are too many staff absences. 
The protests have had political reverberations seven months before voters choose President Emmanuel Macron's successor.
Of the country's 3,700 schools, 735 were affected "in one way or another" on Friday, down 30 percent from Thursday, Education Minister Edouard Geffray said after talks with activists.
He said that three staff members had been injured, compared with 31 on Thursday.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said there had been 1,747 arrests on Friday, adding there had been "projectiles thrown, attacks on law enforcement, teachers, journalists, passersby."
Geffray said an action plan aimed at "speeding up the replacement" of absent teachers would be launched.
 

'Violent repression'

 
Students and police traded accusations of violence.
James, a high school student in the northern city of Lille, denounced what he called "extremely violent police repression, which inevitably fuels students' anger."
"When we see fellow students being beaten, choked, blinded in one eye, and tear-gassed from all sides while we're simply trying to have a dialogue with the government, of course it makes people angry," he said.
In the western city of Brest, police used tear gas at the Kerichen high school as pupils hurled projectiles at security forces, an AFP photographer said.
Interior Minister Nunez said images from the eastern city of Belfort showing a group of youths encircle a lone policeman and kick him to the ground were of a "rare violence and intolerable".
In Paris on Friday, fire damaged the entrances of two high schools, with the fire brigade called to extinguish the blazes, an AFP photographer said. 
The police force has launched internal probes after accusations of brutality against demonstrators.
In the southern city of Toulouse, protesters administered eye drops to each other after police used tear gas, AFP images showed.
In Aubervilliers, north of Paris, police used batons and riot shields to control protesters.
 

'Children in danger'

 
The government has accused the hard left France Unbowed (LFI) -- whose firebrand leader Jean-Luc Melenchon is again standing for the presidency -- of being behind the movement.
Senior LFI official Manuel Bompard had accused the government of "descending into conspiracy theories".
The education minister said "the high school student movement is being held hostage by ultra-violent fringe groups".
Geffray told BFMTV at least 65 staff members had been injured, including 40 high school principals, since the start of the movement.
Some 170 students have been wounded while over 100 high schools have suffered "severe damage", he added.
"What matters now is ensuring our children are no longer out on the streets, because they are in danger."
According to Nunez, more than 300 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
burs-ach/jj

Global Edition

Lula, Bolsonaro trade blows in final scramble for votes in Brazil

BY FACUNDO FERNANDEZ BARRIO WITH LUCIA LACURCIA IN RIO DE JANEIRO

  • Washington suspended consular services in Brasilia over "security concerns" and Australia closed its embassy for the same reason.
  • President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and rival Flavio Bolsonaro are pulling no punches in a last-ditch effort to win voters ahead of Sunday's election in Brazil, where the US suspended consular services Friday over security concerns.
  • Washington suspended consular services in Brasilia over "security concerns" and Australia closed its embassy for the same reason.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and rival Flavio Bolsonaro are pulling no punches in a last-ditch effort to win voters ahead of Sunday's election in Brazil, where the US suspended consular services Friday over security concerns.
US President Donald Trump said he was "very closely" watching the nail-biter poll, which comes after a string of recent right-wing victories across Latin America.
Washington suspended consular services in Brasilia over "security concerns" and Australia closed its embassy for the same reason. Neither gave details.
Police said in a statement they had executed two search and seizure warrants to investigate possible threats to US diplomatic facilities but "no evidence has been found to corroborate the initially reported risks."
US pressure has loomed large over an insult-driven, scandal-littered campaign that has done little to mend Brazil's political fragmentation.
Edinho Silva, president of Lula's Workers' Party (PT), told journalists that the US closing its consulates "makes absolutely no sense. It is one of the ways Trump has to vie for Brazilian public opinion."
Veteran leftist Lula, 80, is in a dead heat with the son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro in polls that predict an October 25 runoff, which will take place if no candidate gets more than half the first-round vote.
"The race is tied but not at a standstill," Felipe Nunes, director of the Quaest polling institute, told AFP.
Horns honked raucously at a Lula rally in Rio de Janeiro attended by thousands on Friday.
"The left has put itself in a position of defending the poorest, the weakest, the minorities," said Alex de Oliveira Rangel, a 55-year-old evangelical pastor.
"As Christians, we have to defend the values that are right for society and defend democracy, which is under serious threat from the right," he told AFP.
Flavio Bolsonaro meanwhile called for a "mega-motorcade" of motorcycles at his final campaign rally in Sao Paulo state on Saturday.
 
- Saintly spat, gynecological gaffe - 
 
Keenly aware of undecided voters, both sides have kept a close eye on anything they can twist to their advantage.
In recent days, the debate lasered in on Brazil's patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, as rumors erupted that Flavio Bolsonaro planned to demote her if elected.
Bolsonaro, 45, issued fierce denials as Lula appeared clutching a statue of the beloved saint, declaring that "messing" with her was "unacceptable."
The electoral court ordered Thursday that posts with the "untrue" claims be taken down.
Next, Bolsonaro and his supporters pounced when Lula said that men were "cowards" when it comes to getting their prostates examined, while "women learn to receive a touch from a young age," referring to gynecological exams.
Clips of his comment circulated widely on social media as if it were an allusion to abuse.
Amid all the drama, many of the nation's 160 million registered voters are disenchanted with their options.
"It's really turned into a circus," said Gisele Sousa, 45, a clothing shop employee in the southeastern city of Juiz de Fora. "My vote won't go to any of them."

Tough foe

 
Lula is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, boasting he is fitter than ever despite his advanced age.
He made Brazilian sovereignty a central plank of his campaign, warning Trump not to "meddle" in Brazilian elections.
The former union leader has overseen a drop in inflation and unemployment while massively curbing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
But voters complain about a high cost of living, and many are jaded by violence and crime.
The president unveiled a flurry of crowd-pleasing measures in recent weeks, increasing social welfare payments and banning sports betting that has ensnared many in debts and gambling addiction.
Bolsonaro vowed that Lula would be "ousted from the presidency" on Sunday.
The once little-known Bolsonaro, a senator since 2019, has proven a tough foe for Lula, even as it emerged Bolsonaro was under investigation for corruption over the financing of the biopic "Dark Horse" about his father.
He was forced during the campaign to admit he had asked jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, at the heart of one of Brazil's largest financial fraud cases, to bankroll the film.
ffb-fb-ll/cc/mjf

education

NY attorney general tasked with investigating alleged Cornell gang rape

  • New York Governor Kathy Hochul said late Thursday that the decision by the Tompkins County district attorney not to prosecute the suspects "undercut my faith, and the public's faith" in the office's ability to handle the case.
  • New York Attorney General Letitia James has been appointed special prosecutor to investigate an alleged gang rape at Cornell University, the state's governor announced, following an outcry over prosecutors' decision not to file charges two years ago.
  • New York Governor Kathy Hochul said late Thursday that the decision by the Tompkins County district attorney not to prosecute the suspects "undercut my faith, and the public's faith" in the office's ability to handle the case.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has been appointed special prosecutor to investigate an alleged gang rape at Cornell University, the state's governor announced, following an outcry over prosecutors' decision not to file charges two years ago.
The investigation was reopened on Monday after the alleged victim filed a civil lawsuit, fueling allegations that the elite college failed to properly hold the men accountable.
The alleged victim said in her lawsuit that in 2024 she was drugged with ketamine, assaulted and raped by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, a social club for male students.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said late Thursday that the decision by the Tompkins County district attorney not to prosecute the suspects "undercut my faith, and the public's faith" in the office's ability to handle the case.
The governor tasked James to investigate and, "if warranted, prosecute any offenses arising from that investigation and present evidence to a grand jury."
"The young woman at the center of this case deserves to know that every fact will be examined and justice pursued," Hochul added in a post on X. 
James, a Democrat who has clashed repeatedly with US President Donald Trump, said on X that she was "ready to lead a process guided by the facts and the law."
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said this week that he planned to file criminal charges against the seven men.
He said his office declined to prosecute in 2024 because the victim's testimony did not establish a lack of consent.
Following the allegations, Cornell closed the fraternity and temporarily suspended the students alleged to be involved, several of whom were later expelled.
bur-lkd/hol/md/mlm

housing

Spain housing package at risk in parliament, as protests mount

BY DIEGO URDANETA

  • Housing affordability has been one of Spain's main social concerns for years but protests intensified following Abascal's eviction.
  • Spain's parliament was to vote Friday on government housing decrees introduced after nationwide protests triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, but there were doubts the measures would pass.
  • Housing affordability has been one of Spain's main social concerns for years but protests intensified following Abascal's eviction.
Spain's parliament was to vote Friday on government housing decrees introduced after nationwide protests triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, but there were doubts the measures would pass.
The uncertainty followed a decision late Thursday by the Catalan separatist Junts party to oppose both measures, potentially depriving Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's coalition of a parliamentary majority.
The housing crisis has dominated political debate since the eviction, on a stretcher, of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal on September 23 from the apartment she had occupied for around seven decades.
Her case has become a symbol of growing frustration over housing affordability.
"It can't go on like this!" Miel Diaz, a 23-year-old teacher at the protest Friday, told AFP.
"Most people in this country have a housing problem or know someone who does," he added. 
Teresa Morollón, 46, said she felt "let down" by the likelihood of parliament voting against the measures.
"We understand that the parliamentary arithmetic is extremely complicated, but bold and inclusive policies need to be put in place for everyone," she added.
Abascal's case galvanized thousands of Spaniards to protest the housing situation, and tent camps have sprung up in Madrid and other cities to press for urgent government action.
The pensioner was forced out of her flat after it was acquired by an investment company that sought to increase her rent by 275 percent.
On Monday, though, the company reversed course and agreed to allow Abascal back into the apartment.
 

'Hour of truth'

 
The government decrees include the automatic renewal of rental contracts when they expire, and measures aimed at restricting the eviction of vulnerable tenants.
They also target so-called vulture funds: investment firms that buy properties at low prices in pursuit of higher returns.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly urged lawmakers to support the measures, calling on them to act with "responsibility" in the fragmented parliament, where his coalition government lacks a majority.
"The hour of truth has arrived," he wrote on X late on Thursday, arguing parties must choose if "they are with the social majority or with the speculators".
Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez said on Friday that thousands of people were waiting for the result of the vote.
"The session today is not just another session," she said.
The government had negotiated the decrees with business-friendly Junts, which backs less regulation on landlords.
But the Catalan party announced late Thursday that it would oppose both decrees unless the government withdrew them and agreed to draw up new measures. The government refused.
Junts argues that the proposed measures unfairly lump small landlords who rely on rental income together with profit-driven real-estate companies, and could have "negative and irreversible" effects.
Sanchez's government relies on the support of the Junts party's seven lawmakers to pass legislation.
 

Early election?

 
The Spanish Tenants' Union criticised the prospect of defeat, with spokeswoman Alicia del Rio accusing parliament of defending speculation and highlighting what she called the "colossal gap" between demands from society and what lawmakers were preparing to vote on.
It has called for a general strike and has vowed to keep occupying Madrid's central Puerta del Sol until its demands are met.
A defeat would increase pressure on Sanchez's minority government and could intensify opposition calls for an early election.
The leader of far-right Vox party,  Santiago Abascal, said on Friday that "the sooner elections are held, the better".
Spain's next general election is not due until 2027, and Sanchez has repeatedly ruled out calling an early vote.
Housing affordability has been one of Spain's main social concerns for years but protests intensified following Abascal's eviction.
Recent opinion polls have generally placed the opposition Popular Party ahead of the Socialists.
bur-du/ds/rmb

landslide

Nepal's grim DNA puzzle to identify flood dead

BY PAAVAN MATHEMA AND ANUP OJHA

  • "I searched for him everywhere, but I could not find his body," 53-year-old Ram told AFP, still waiting for answers about his son Suroj Kumar, a garage mechanic in Betrawati, which was swamped by the floods.
  • Clutching a photograph of his missing son, Rajesh Ram is pinning his hopes on DNA testing -- like thousands of others desperately seeking relatives swept away by Nepal's catastrophic Himalayan floods.
  • "I searched for him everywhere, but I could not find his body," 53-year-old Ram told AFP, still waiting for answers about his son Suroj Kumar, a garage mechanic in Betrawati, which was swamped by the floods.
Clutching a photograph of his missing son, Rajesh Ram is pinning his hopes on DNA testing -- like thousands of others desperately seeking relatives swept away by Nepal's catastrophic Himalayan floods.
"I searched for him everywhere, but I could not find his body," 53-year-old Ram told AFP, still waiting for answers about his son Suroj Kumar, a garage mechanic in Betrawati, which was swamped by the floods.
Nepal was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of destruction from the tsunami-like wall of freezing water and debris triggered by a glacial and rock collapse on the Nepal-China border on August 26.
The scale of the identification task is immense.
With thousands of DNA profiles to process, fragmented remains and limited technical capacity and manpower, experts warn matching bodies to families could take weeks.
Nepali disaster authorities have recovered 1,454 bodies -- but around a third of those are only partial remains. 
Just 112 bodies have been identified and returned to their families. A further 5,285 people are missing in Nepal, including hundreds of foreigners.
In China, the toll is 43 dead and 519 missing, according to state media -- taking the combined toll to nearly 1,500 dead and 5,800 missing.
At Nepal's two forensic laboratories, both in Kathmandu, experts are working to profile samples and build a database on a scale they have never handled before.
"In a year we would analyse 1,000-1,500 samples, often in case of paternity or crime scenes," said Mukul Pradhan, chief scientific officer at the National Forensic Science Laboratory. "We are now processing thousands of samples."

'Pain'

A total of 3,685 forensic samples are undergoing DNA testing, including more than 1,300 collected from recovered bodies.
Blood samples are easier to profile, but those taken from teeth or bones can take several days to process.
Nepal has buried more than 1,200 bodies, carefully numbering and tagging them so they can be retrieved if a DNA match is found.
"A large number of people are missing, and the bodies that have been found they are difficult to identify," said Nepali police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle. "We understand the pain people are in, and our teams are working diligently."
Some bodies were carried far downstream by the floodwaters, further complicating the task, said Nirajan Thapa,Chief of Biology section at the National Forensic Science Laboratory.
"In an earthquake or an accident, people are recovered in a specific area, so we work in a closed scenario -- the body’s DNA has to be compared to a limited number of samples," Thapa said. "But that scale has now become very large."
DNA alone cannot identify a body without a reference sample from a relative.
"Just by extracting a DNA profile is not enough to identify someone," Thapa said. "We have to extract a DNA profile from their relatives and then compare".
That means authorities must process samples from both unidentified remains and thousands of relatives before they can establish matches.
Several countries have sent in support teams, including neighbouring India and China, as well as South Korea. Fingerprint experts from the United States and Singapore are also assisting.
Thapa said that with that help, matching could begin within a few weeks.
But until the results come, the families behind those samples face a painful limbo. Some families have held symbolic cremation funerals for the missing.
Ram wonders if he will ever get any answers. "I am waiting if I can find any remains of my son," he said.
pm/pjm/lkd

Palestinians

Arab Israeli candidate drops out of election race

  • The Supreme Court convened on Thursday to hear Abu Shehadeh's appeal against the disqualification.
  • Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy on Thursday from October's parliamentary election after Israel's Supreme Court indicated a majority of its judges supported barring him from the race.
  • The Supreme Court convened on Thursday to hear Abu Shehadeh's appeal against the disqualification.
Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy on Thursday from October's parliamentary election after Israel's Supreme Court indicated a majority of its judges supported barring him from the race.
Arab Israeli parties are seen by political analysts as potential kingmakers in the October 27 election, with polls showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for a majority.
Abu Shehadeh leads the left-wing Palestinian Balad party and served in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, from 2019 to 2022.
The Balad leader was withdrawing his candidacy, but the decision did not mark the end of his political struggle, his party said in a statement, adding that he would remain the party's leader.
Last week, Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The move came after an article in which Abu Shehadeh described Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack as an "important historical event".
He has denied supporting the attack, but the remarks drew sharp criticism.
The Supreme Court convened on Thursday to hear Abu Shehadeh's appeal against the disqualification.
Rather than issue a ruling, the court proposed that he voluntarily withdraw after signalling that most of its judges favoured excluding him from the election.
It gave him until Friday morning to decide.
Abu Shehadeh had little choice but to withdraw in order to avoid a formal disqualification that would have "grave consequences for the country's political and parliamentary life", Balad said.

'Severe blow'

Disqualifying candidates is rare in Israel, where the Supreme Court has historically overturned most bans approved by the elections committee.
Under Israeli law, candidates can be barred only if they deny Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state or support armed struggle by an enemy state or a terrorist organisation against Israel.
Adalah, the Israeli rights group representing Abu Shehadeh, accused the Supreme Court of effectively disqualifying him by pressuring him to withdraw.
"A Palestinian leader has been forced out of the Israeli Knesset elections after the Supreme Court made clear it would remove him," the group said in a statement to AFP.
Adalah said Abu Shehadeh's decades of public life as a human rights activist, legislator and party leader demonstrated his "consistent and unequivocal opposition to violence of any kind".
"It is a severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election."
Besides Abu Shehadeh, the elections committee last week barred two Arab electoral lists: the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Balad.
The Supreme Court is due to continue hearing appeals from those parties on Friday.
Arab Israelis, also known as Palestinian citizens of Israel, account for about 20 percent of the country's population. Most identify as Palestinians.
They are descendants of Palestinians who remained within Israel's borders after the state's creation in 1948 and have long complained of discrimination compared with Israel's Jewish majority.
gkg/lpa/abs/tc