pope

Pope urges French bishops to 'persevere' against clerical sex abuse

BY CLEMENT MELKI, CLAIRE GALLEN AND ELOI ROUYER

  • A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 minors in France over 70 years.
  • Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged French bishops to keep battling the "scourge" of clerical sex abuse during a trip to France, after repeated accusations against the Church in recent years.
  • A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 minors in France over 70 years.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged French bishops to keep battling the "scourge" of clerical sex abuse during a trip to France, after repeated accusations against the Church in recent years.
The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics was on a four-day trip to France, a secular country with deep Catholic roots, marking the first official papal visit there in nearly two decades.
"You have faced with determination the painful scourge of abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy or within an ecclesial context," he told the bishops during a private meeting in the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, according to a copy of his speech released to the press.
"It is important to persevere along the path you have begun, maintaining the greatest vigilance."
A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 minors in France over 70 years.
The first US pontiff was later Sunday to meet privately with seven of the victims, now adults, after promising to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.
Among them is an 80-year-old man who was abused as a pupil at Notre-Dame de Betharram, a nearby boarding school at the centre of widespread accusations of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.
 

'False compassion'

 
Catholic tradition says the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl in a grotto in Lourdes in 1858, and the modern-day sanctuary is one of the most important Catholic holy sites in the world.
The southwestern French town receives some three million pilgrims each year, and believers credit it with miraculous healings. 
On Sunday morning, hymns rang out in a packed field near the sanctuary after Pope Leo blessed the faithful with holy water.
"When we heard the Pope was coming to Lourdes, we booked our seats right away!" said 54-year-old Jerome Vion from Paris, wearing a lavender t-shirt marked "Generation Leo".
He approved of the pontiff's attention to victims of clerical abuse.
"It is his role as a spiritual master to guide this church, which has been through absolutely atrocious things -- but has been in repentance for years," he said. 
Domitille Bardoul, 26, said it was "very beautiful" that the pope was going to listen to victims.
"It's also a way of acknowledging that every possible measure is being taken to prevent this kind of abuse," she added.
Leo is the third pope to visit Lourdes after Benedict XVI in 2008 and Jean-Paul II in 1983 and 2004.
Addressing sick pilgrims on Sunday afternoon, Leo rejected assisted dying, after French parliament in June legalised the practice for certain adults suffering from an incurable condition.
"We must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion," he said.
"What is legal is not necessarily moral."
 

'Wise leaders'

 
The pope arrived in Lourdes on Saturday evening after a huge open-air mass on a Paris square and adjoining high-end shopping avenue.
Months ahead of a presidential election with the far-right surging and immigration high on the agenda, he prayed to the Virgin Mary to "obtain for France wise and generous leaders... eager to serve the common good".
Earlier in the afternoon, the 71-year-old pope led enthusiastic worshippers in a mass at Paris's Place de la Concorde, with just seven months to go before voters choose a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
A number of presidential hopefuls were present, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Edouard Philippe.
Macron did not attend the mass but was represented by his wife Brigitte.
burs-ah/yad

protest

UK PM urges 'calm' as thousands block flashpoint N.Ireland parade

BY PETER MURPHY

  • The tensions spiked after a Belfast court in the early hours of Sunday cleared the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997.
  • UK Prime Minister Andy Burnam urged "calm" Sunday as thousands of people rallied to block a pro-British Protestant march from passing through a mainly Catholic area for the first time in 28 years, triggering an hours-long standoff.
  • The tensions spiked after a Belfast court in the early hours of Sunday cleared the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnam urged "calm" Sunday as thousands of people rallied to block a pro-British Protestant march from passing through a mainly Catholic area for the first time in 28 years, triggering an hours-long standoff.
The tensions spiked after a Belfast court in the early hours of Sunday cleared the march by the Orange Order to go ahead for the first time since 1997.
The Parades Commission, Northern Ireland's independent body regulating contentious processions, had authorised 35 Orangemen to march silently along Garvaghy Road in Portadown, without bands or supporters from 8:00 am (0700 GMT) Sunday.
But hours later the group of Orangemen remained blocked in a church, while about 2,000 local residents ignored torrential rain to fill the streets and bar their path.
Burnham appealed for "calm on all sides", adding in an interview with BBC television that "big gains" had been made in Northern Ireland "and we don't want to see things go backwards".
Northern Ireland was blighted for three decades by conflict between largely Catholic, pro-Irish republicans and Protestant, pro-UK unionists, and the Garvaghy Road became a major flashpoint during the late 1990s.
There was a heavy security presence on Sunday in the Portadown area, 25 miles southwest of Belfast, with armoured police vehicles and a helicopter whirring overhead.
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill, of the Irish republican Sinn Fein party, condemned the late-night court ruling allowing the march to go ahead.
"Our message tonight is clear. There is no going back. Not tomorrow. Not ever," said O'Neill.
She said she supported "the right of the Garvaghy Road residents to protest against this unwanted sectarian march".
Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald told reporters as she walked with the counter-protesters that the "residents and community have come out to defend their right to live free from sectarian harassment".
Since the 1998 Good Friday peace accords ending the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland "there has been lots of progress ... it has been transformational. People's lives have been changed fundamentally," she said, adding "we are not going back".
 

Legal challenges

 
But Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said there should be "unanimous condemnation" of O'Neill accusing her of "breaking the law" by ignoring the will of the courts.
"Our party is maintaining the dignity of the Portadown Orangemen as they have shown determination and patience so will we," he told reporters.
The procession had survived a series of last-minute legal challenges.
A Belfast High Court judge temporarily blocked it on Saturday, warning that the long-running dispute could escalate across Northern Ireland and urging the parties to "step back from the abyss".
But shortly before midnight, a three-judge Court of Appeal panel overturned the injunction, ruling that the judge had "erred in law".
The substantive legal challenge was returned to the High Court, but the appeal decision left the procession free to begin at 8:00 am (0700 GMT) on Sunday.
Carla Lockhart, a local MP from the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, called the appeal overturn "seismic" and said residents had nothing to fear.
"Thirty-five men walking down a road silently with no bands in an orderly fashion; there is nothing to fear," she said.
The confrontation, known as the Drumcree dispute after the church attended by the marchers, became a major flashpoint during the late 1990s.
Attempts to force the parade through, or prevent it from proceeding, repeatedly triggered serious disorder.
The Parades Commission was established in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement largely ended three decades of conflict over British rule known as the Troubles.
It barred the Order from completing the route that year and has consistently rejected subsequent applications.
The issue was revived in August when the High Court quashed the commission's latest restriction because of procedural failings, without ruling that the Order had a right to march along Garvaghy Road.
The Order then submitted a fresh application, leading to Friday's decision permitting the restricted procession.
The Orange Order is an pro-British organisation that takes its name from William of Orange, the Protestant Dutchman who seized the English, Scottish and Ireland throne from Catholic King James II in 1689.
pmu-jkb-har/yad

wine

Italy winemakers hail bumper harvest but cut output

BY TAIMAZ SZIRNIKS

  • But, like many Italian regions, Piedmont has produced too much wine in recent years and growers are struggling to sell it in markets disrupted by wars, US tariffs, and younger generations which drink a bit less.
  • Wine growers in Italy's Piedmont region are celebrating a bountiful harvest despite the extreme heat but warn they have to cut production because of trade headwinds and changing consumer habits.
  • But, like many Italian regions, Piedmont has produced too much wine in recent years and growers are struggling to sell it in markets disrupted by wars, US tariffs, and younger generations which drink a bit less.
Wine growers in Italy's Piedmont region are celebrating a bountiful harvest despite the extreme heat but warn they have to cut production because of trade headwinds and changing consumer habits.
In Agliano Terme, where vine-covered hills stretch as far as the eye can see, a dozen farm workers were picking the last Barbera grapes -- a variety behind one of the region's most popular red wines.
"We started harvesting at the end of July, which is unheard of," said Filippo Mobrici, 59, head of the Barbera d'Asti Consortium.
"But I've never seen such a beautiful vintage, both in terms of quantity and quality. It's a five-star harvest," the winemaker said.
The summer of 2026 was the hottest ever recorded in this northern Italian region between the Alps and the Po Valley, with an average temperature of 21.6 degrees Celsius and peaks of 40 near Agliano Terme.
But the winter had been rainy, and the beginning of spring as well.
"The vines were able to build up sufficient water reserves so that, despite the extreme heat of recent months, the grapes reached maturity in good conditions," Mobrici said.
Winemakers also protected the grapes from the sun by keeping more foliage on than usual.
But, like many Italian regions, Piedmont has produced too much wine in recent years and growers are struggling to sell it in markets disrupted by wars, US tariffs, and younger generations which drink a bit less.
As a result, Barbera d'Asti producers have decided to limit volumes of the variety collected this year from nine tonnes to 8.5 tonnes per hectare.

'Bold choices'

Producers are also putting less wine on the market.
Stocks in Italy, the world's leading wine-producing country, were up 6.9 percent year-on-year in July, according to official data.
The stored volume reached the equivalent of more than 5.6 billion bottles, nearly one year of production.
In Piedmont, some winegrowers have chosen to turn part of their production into vinegar this year.
Italy's Wine Union (UIV) is calling for production to be planned according to the market and for no new vineyard plantings.
UIV president Lamberto Frescobaldi, a 33rd-generation Tuscan winegrower, said he was also open to the idea of removing old or unviable grapevines.
"It's time to take responsibility for making bold choices, even unpopular ones," he said earlier this year.
In Agliano Terme, Filippo Mobrici refuses to consider the idea of uprooting vines.
"For us, vineyards are not just a production tool," he said.
"They are an expression of our culture and a key element in shaping and preserving the land. We do not want to uproot ourselves."
A few kilometres further south, in San Marzano Oliveto, 41-year-old Luca Garberoglio is also pleased with a fine harvest and insists that stocks are "manageable" at the scale of the small Barbera d'Asti area.
Like many neighbouring producers, his family estate Carussin has succeeded in moving upmarket thanks to the production of organic wines exported in particular to Scandinavia.
And, because of climate change, the taste is changing.
Barbera d'Asti, "traditionally dominated by notes of cherry and plum, is increasingly evolving toward more concentrated aromas of blackberry and blackcurrant", Garberoglio said after a tasting.
tsz/dt/rlp/hol

film

Curtain falls on the romance of India's single-screen cinemas

BY AISHWARYA KUMAR WITH PITCHA DANGPRASITH IN MUMBAI

  • "Only in the single screen theatres can they take the cinema to the next level, it increases the tradition of cinema," Santosh said, as cheers and whistles reverberated through the packed hall before the film began.
  • The demolition has begun at Bengaluru's Urvashi Cinema, once a 1,200-seat movie palace where generations of filmgoers cheered and whistled, another casualty of India's vanishing single-screen era.
  • "Only in the single screen theatres can they take the cinema to the next level, it increases the tradition of cinema," Santosh said, as cheers and whistles reverberated through the packed hall before the film began.
The demolition has begun at Bengaluru's Urvashi Cinema, once a 1,200-seat movie palace where generations of filmgoers cheered and whistled, another casualty of India's vanishing single-screen era.
"The theatre came up in the 1970s... I was so happy when it opened," said Manjunath, watching as seats were ripped out and strewn outside.
Manjunath, who uses one name, recalled its glory days, when the shop he runs opposite was packed with customers buying snacks before and after shows.
"That was the rush... now I have a lot of free time," he said. "But what to do? There is barely any crowd."
The peeling facades, faded signs and cavernous auditoriums of such cinemas are remnants of a time when going to the movies was itself the main event.
"It is a completely different experience," said photographer Hemant Chaturvedi, 58, who has documented what remains during a seven-year odyssey, photographing 1,350 single-screen cinemas across 1,000 towns.
His photographs capture not only the movie houses but their ornate facades and decay -- a record of a cultural landscape disappearing as cinemas are demolished, converted into multiplexes or left to crumble.

'Ecosystem is fading'

"People would be cheering, jumping on the seats, even throwing money at the screen," Chaturvedi said.
The old halls offered a collective, interactive experience, with fans applauding at the hero's entrance, clapping to romantic songs and shouting at dramatic twists.
"Now that old ecosystem is fading, and the charm is being lost," he said.
India's single-screen cinemas have been steadily squeezed by multiplexes, streaming, rising property costs and the expense of maintaining ageing buildings and equipment.
Researchers estimate that India had around 14,000 single-screen halls in the 1980s. Only around 2,000 remain today.
Many of the old halls could accommodate around 1,000 people, creating a communal atmosphere rarely found in today's multiplexes.
The decline has also changed the way Indians experience films. New halls offer air conditioning, reclining seats and food delivered to the seat.
"To me, the new cinemas have lost the charm," said Chaturvedi, a former Bollywood cinematographer who worked on hit movies during a three-decade career.
"The multiplexes are a generic, cold experience."

'Old times'

Some of the old cinemas have been restored and renovated, and the single-screen experience still has its devotees.
In Bengaluru, Mukunda Cinemas still draws crowds -- even for early-morning shows before work.
Hundreds lined up before dawn for a recent 6:00 am screening of the latest release of film star Yash, who is hugely popular in India's Kannada-language cinema.
Santosh, a 47-year-old businessman who uses one name, queued with hundreds of others as crowds set off fireworks outside while waiting for the show.
"Only in the single screen theatres can they take the cinema to the next level, it increases the tradition of cinema," Santosh said, as cheers and whistles reverberated through the packed hall before the film began.
Veerain Reddy, the third generation of his family running the 50-year-old theatre, said maintaining the establishment "was not an easy task".
Inflation, rising costs and "so much competition" have made business tough.
"But people who are really passionate are still trying to maintain these single-screen theatres, where people come to watch and celebrate cinema," he told AFP.
Another survivor in Mumbai -- formerly known as Bombay -- is the Regal Cinema, an Art Deco hall that opened in 1933.
"The rest of them feel very artificial, commercial, very blingy," said 23-year-old fan Vanshika. "But Bombay has little places which remind us of the old times."
ash-pjm/abh/pbt

pope

'He said hello': Families pray with pope on Paris avenue

BY ALICE HACKMAN

  • "He said hello to you," said her 43-year-old mother Michelle Gomis, beaming, after the popemobile drove past.
  • Jumping down from her uncle's shoulders, seven-year-old Dona ran grinning to her mother after Pope Leo XIV waved at her on his way past on a famed Paris avenue.
  • "He said hello to you," said her 43-year-old mother Michelle Gomis, beaming, after the popemobile drove past.
Jumping down from her uncle's shoulders, seven-year-old Dona ran grinning to her mother after Pope Leo XIV waved at her on his way past on a famed Paris avenue.
"He said hello to you," said her 43-year-old mother Michelle Gomis, beaming, after the popemobile drove past.
They were among an estimated 800,000 faithful who lined the Champs Elysees and adjoining streets in Paris on Saturday to welcome the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics for a giant open-air mass.
"It's such a joy for us to see the pope," said the French mother-of-three of Senegalese origin, before settling down on a blanket with her family to listen to mass on the high-end shopping avenue's sidewalk.
Just an hour earlier, the excitement had built up ahead of the main Paris event of the first official papal visit to the European nation in 18 years.
Agathe Chateau Frilloux sprinted down a long road parallel to the Champs Elysee, her daughter and son running close behind, only just making it to their designated gate before the set cut-off time.
"The door closed just behind us," said the Catholic from the southeastern city of Lyon, catching her breath elated, before they headed into the crowd.
Helicopters could be heard flying overhead as worshippers waved small yellow-and-white Vatican flags by the side of the avenue.
"Hallelujah, hallelujah," sang a group of volunteers in yellow t-shirts.

'Dear families'

Parents had arrived equipped with sandwiches, books, playing cards and colouring paper to entertain their children during the wait for the pope on his way to a makeshift alter down the road.
Jeanne de Montagnac, 29, stood by her husband and two-year-old daughter, perched on his shoulders with a telephone number scribbled in biro pen on her arm.
"We're happy that, even if she won't remember it, we're sharing this with her," she said, a small golden cross around her neck.
"It's an important moment for us."
As mass got underway, loudspeakers set up just outside a designer clothes shop blasted the hymns a choir sang at Place de la Concorde, almost two kilometres (1.2 miles) away.
People sitting on the pavement hugged their knees, dropping their heads as they listened to the pope's voice echo across the Champs Elysees.
Others perched on the wall surrounding the elevator exit of a closed-off metro station.
"I think of you, dear families, who, despite the many difficulties you face each day, persevere courageously in your vocation and mission," Pope Leo said.
As he spoke, mothers in the back rows swayed from side to side, hugging exhausted toddlers who had missed nap time.
A child wriggled screaming out of her father's arms, just after the pope said "Peace be upon you" and the avenue fell silent.

'Stark contrast'

Tiphaine Plattard, 32, walked out of the crowd behind a boy in tears, patiently settling him down for a rest in a pushchair.
She and her husband had driven two hours to Paris to bring their five children, aged one to six, to see Pope Leo, she said.
"It's a challenge," said the nuclear engineer.
But "it's important for us to pass this on to them."
She said her two-metre (6.5-feet) tall husband had hoisted two of the children towards the sky, while she carried another so they could get a glimpse of Pope Leo.
"It's such a privilege, it's extraordinary," she said of hearing "hallelujah" sung across the famed avenue.
Her husband Antoine, a head hunter who turns 35 on Sunday, said it was his first time seeing the pope as an adult.
The setting made his message even more striking, he said.
"What the pope is telling us is that what matters is spiritual nourishment, and not the materialism that is so prevalent today," he said, outside a luxury jewelry store.
"We were standing in front of a shop selling necklaces costing 15,000 euros. It's quite a stark contrast," he added.
ah/jj

diplomacy

Giant statue of Pope Leo XIV takes shape in Peru workshop

  • He will visit Montevideo, Paysandu and Florida in Uruguay from November 6 to 8 and then head to Argentina, where he will visit Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Lujan, until November 11. cm-sf-gta/vel/lkd/ksb
  • A giant clay sculpture of Pope Leo XIV's head takes shape in a workshop in Peru's capital, as the Andean nation prepares for the pontiff's visit in November.
  • He will visit Montevideo, Paysandu and Florida in Uruguay from November 6 to 8 and then head to Argentina, where he will visit Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Lujan, until November 11. cm-sf-gta/vel/lkd/ksb
A giant clay sculpture of Pope Leo XIV's head takes shape in a workshop in Peru's capital, as the Andean nation prepares for the pontiff's visit in November.
The sculptor and his workmen look like miniature figures as they work on the 14-meter monument in honor of the pope, who is a Peruvian citizen.
The statue will be unveiled before the head of the Catholic Church's arrival in Peru on November 11.
Rafael Gutierrez, a 42-year-old artist, is leading the project from his modest workshop in Lima's Carabayllo district.
"Every morning, together with the staff, we say a short prayer so that we’re given strength and can make it to the end of the job," Gutierrez told AFP.
He smooths the features of the head -- which he says weighs more than a ton -- with a yellow sponge, while another craftsman adds clay to the fingers of the enormous hands.
Other workers erect scaffolding for a four-story structure where they will assemble, piece by piece, the giant replica of the pope. A total of eight people are working on the piece.
Gutierrez said he used artificial intelligence and a 3D model to help design the sculpture.
"We’re grateful that the pope has blessed us so that we can create his image," 48-year-old worker Lener Mendoza said.
The monument will be installed in a park in Callao, a nearby port city, after being coated with polyurethane foam and fiberglass, and finished with a marble dust.
Callao is backing the project as a tribute to the pope's ties with the city, where he served as the apostolic administrator of the diocese from 2020 to 2021.
"As a Catholic, making Pope Robert Prevost for me is something unique because of... what he represents, the Catholic faith," Gutierrez said. 
Standing on a concrete pedestal, the statue will depict the pontiff with open arms, wearing his long papal robe and a crucifix around his neck.
Leo XIV was born in the US city of Chicago but lived in Peru for more than two decades, where he was a missionary and bishop in Chiclayo.
The northern city will be among his stops in Peru, along with Lima, Cusco and Pucallpa.
He will visit Montevideo, Paysandu and Florida in Uruguay from November 6 to 8 and then head to Argentina, where he will visit Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Lujan, until November 11.
cm-sf-gta/vel/lkd/ksb

pope

Huge crowds cheer Pope Leo along Champs-Elysees ahead of Paris mass

  • Clutching small French and Vatican flags, crowds gathered in anticipation ahead of the service, with the city centre sealed off, helicopters circling overhead and snipers positioned on rooftops.
  • Pope Leo XIV rode down the French capital's iconic Champs-Elysees avenue in his popemobile on Saturday to the cheers of huge crowds of faithful, ahead of a giant open-air mass.
  • Clutching small French and Vatican flags, crowds gathered in anticipation ahead of the service, with the city centre sealed off, helicopters circling overhead and snipers positioned on rooftops.
Pope Leo XIV rode down the French capital's iconic Champs-Elysees avenue in his popemobile on Saturday to the cheers of huge crowds of faithful, ahead of a giant open-air mass.
Aboard the popemobile, the smiling pontiff blessed several babies and waved to worshippers, as he made his way from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde, where a giant white canopy was installed.
Dozens of giant screens lined the more than two-kilometre stretch.
Clutching small French and Vatican flags, crowds gathered in anticipation ahead of the service, with the city centre sealed off, helicopters circling overhead and snipers positioned on rooftops.
The service, the centrepiece of the second day of the pontiff's four-day visit to France, was due to begin at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT), with around 600,000 worshippers expected to attend.
Parents arrived with pushchairs or children perched on their shoulders as believers hoped to catch a glimpse of the pontiff on the second day of the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades.
Near the stage at Place de la Concorde a number of politicians took their seats, including far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.
President Emmanuel Macron was not expected to attend the mass and would be represented by his wife Brigitte.
cmk-cg-maj-ah-as/rmb

pope

Pope to celebrate giant Paris mass after 'peace' appeal

BY CLEMENT MELKI AND CLAIRE GALLEN

  • He said it was "possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace."
  • Pope Leo XIV was on Saturday to celebrate an open-air mass for hundreds of thousands of believers on the Champs Elysees in Paris, after saying it was possible to "live together in dignity and peace".
  • He said it was "possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace."
Pope Leo XIV was on Saturday to celebrate an open-air mass for hundreds of thousands of believers on the Champs Elysees in Paris, after saying it was possible to "live together in dignity and peace".
The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics was on a four-day trip to France, a secular country with deep Catholic roots, with his trip stirring enthusiasm and spiritual fervour among the faithful. 
Parents arrived with pushchairs or children perched on their shoulders as crowds gathered in central Paris to catch a glimpse of the pontiff on the second day of the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades.
The pope, 71, was due to lead the faithful in prayer from 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) at Place de la Concorde and along the adjoining Champs-Elysees.
On streets surrounding the Champs-Elysees, dozens of coaches dropped worshippers who had travelled from across France, many holding stools or folding chairs as they settled in for a wait of several hours.
Sylvie Leclerc, a 51-year-old teacher, clutched the Normandy flag.
"It's a big event, we've come to share the Christian fervour," she said.
"You don't hear much from us Catholics, but now we're going to make some noise! But to proclaim love, peace, joy," she added.

'Civilisation of love'

Fifteen-year-old Alix was among teenagers looking forward to the mass.
"We're so lucky to be here," she said, wearing electric blue mascara and glittery cross-shaped earrings.
"Seeing the pope is really something. After all, he's God's representative on Earth."
The first US pontiff was visiting France seven months before voters choose a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with the anti-immigration far right eyeing its best opportunity yet to capture the presidency.
Macron will not attend the mass, but presidential hopefuls including far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Edouard Philippe have confirmed their attendance.
Earlier in the day, the pope met migrants as he visited Maison Bakhita, an association supporting refugees.
He said it was "possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace."
Dressed in a white cassock, Leo also stressed the "fundamental role of women in building a civilisation of love."
The association said the pope's visit sent a "message" ahead of the election.

'Saints of France'

On Friday, an estimated 300,000 people turned out to see the pontiff as he waved from his popemobile on the way to the Notre Dame Cathedral.
"There is a sense of fervour reminiscent of that experienced over 40 years ago with John Paul II," Francois Mabille, director of the Geopolitical Observatory on Religion, told broadcaster RMC.
On Friday, Pope Leo stressed the need for ethics to avoid an AI-driven "paradise of machines" and, as war rages in Ukraine for a fifth year, urged France to remain a "tireless champion of peace". 
He also told young adults at a stadium outside the French capital on Friday night that they were the "saints of France."
In a deeply secular country, only around five percent of France's 69 million residents go to Catholic church services regularly, a survey found last year.
But while infant baptisms have declined in recent years, increasing numbers of teenagers and adults are being baptised.
After the mass in Paris, Pope Leo will head to Lourdes, a town in southwestern France where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto in 1858 to a peasant girl.
In Lourdes on Sunday, he will speak with seven victims of clerical sex abuse.
A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France, over seven decades. 
In recent years, further accusations have emerged against charity icon Abbe Pierre and workers at a Catholic boarding school near Lourdes.
For the last leg of his trip, in Metz on Monday, Leo is expected to deliver a speech about peace in Europe. 
burs-as/ah/rmb

landslide

Nepal tunnel survivor wants to help post-flood rebuild

BY ANUP OJHA

  • Maharjan, who was among hundreds of workers employed at projects hit by the floods, was eventually airlifted from the worst-hit Rasuwa region.
  • Pulled alive 10 days after catastrophic floods trapped him in a tunnel, Nepali hydropower worker Kabir Maharjan is determined to help rebuild his country despite his own harrowing ordeal.
  • Maharjan, who was among hundreds of workers employed at projects hit by the floods, was eventually airlifted from the worst-hit Rasuwa region.
Pulled alive 10 days after catastrophic floods trapped him in a tunnel, Nepali hydropower worker Kabir Maharjan is determined to help rebuild his country despite his own harrowing ordeal.
Traditional music and tearful relatives welcomed the 45-year-old when he returned home on Friday after spending weeks recovering at a hospital in Kathmandu.
"Life is precious. Hundreds of people have died but I survived," the father of two told AFP, his voice choked with emotion.
"Perhaps I still have work to do for my society, for the country, and my home and family."
The August 26 flood, triggered by a glacial mountain collapse near the China-Nepal border, has killed more than 1,400 people, the majority in Nepal.
Over 5,000 remain missing in Nepal since the tsunami-like waves swept away roads, bridges and settlements in the mountainous regions up north, and battered crucial hydropower projects.
Maharjan, who was among hundreds of workers employed at projects hit by the floods, was eventually airlifted from the worst-hit Rasuwa region.
His miraculous rescue on September 4, alongside fellow worker Sanjay Sah, offered a rare moment of hope during the disaster.
Now, as Nepal shifts from emergency response to reconstruction, he said he hopes to return to his profession.
"There is risk in everything, but still we have to win over it," he said.

'Work is our karma'

More than 800 people employed at hydropower projects in Nepal remain unaccounted for, the energy minister told parliament last week.
Forty-seven bodies have been recovered from flood-hit project sites, while rescue teams continue to comb through the ruins.
Maharjan said he survived by reaching an upper floor of the tunnel site and drinking water while waiting for help.
"Whenever I was awake, I would try to find a way out," he said.
Days later, he saw what appeared to be a light and heard voices.
"I thought I imagined it. But I called out, and they answered."
For Maharjan, the country's long road to recovery mirrors his own -- he is still recovering from wounds on his hand and leg.
But he said the rebuilding efforts could also provide spiritual sustenance.
"While we are alive we must be patient and do our work," he said.
"Work is our karma."

Continuing crisis

The flooding dealt a major blow to Nepal's hydropower generation system, which is central to the country's development ambitions and export earnings.
The government estimates overall reconstruction could cost $4.8 billion, with thousands of people displaced and key infrastructure damaged.
The disaster has also renewed scrutiny of how roads, hydropower plants and trade corridors are built in Nepal's challenging mountain terrain.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah told the United Nations on Thursday that the flooding was "a warning to the world" about the growing dangers posed by climate change, urging greater international support to help Nepal adapt and rebuild.
Aid groups have warned that the humanitarian crisis is far from over.
"The floodwaters may have receded, but for thousands of people, the crisis is far from over," David Fisher, head of delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Nepal, said Friday.
"It is urgent to take the next steps in the recovery process to keep people healthy and avoid a spiral into poverty."
aoj-pm/abh/mjw

trial

TikTok agrees to teen limits in US settlement following Meta

  • Under the settlement, TikTok will send $100 million to Alabama and could possibly pay up to $300 million in total if other states accept similar agreements.
  • TikTok on Friday agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and enact time limits and other restrictions for teen users, avoiding trial with a settlement modeled on Instagram-owner Meta's recent agreement with US states.
  • Under the settlement, TikTok will send $100 million to Alabama and could possibly pay up to $300 million in total if other states accept similar agreements.
TikTok on Friday agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and enact time limits and other restrictions for teen users, avoiding trial with a settlement modeled on Instagram-owner Meta's recent agreement with US states.
A trial had been set to begin Monday in the southern US state over claims by Alabama that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content.
Attorney General Steve Marshall hailed the settlement as "a great day for Alabama parents."
"Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction," he said.
Under the settlement, TikTok will send $100 million to Alabama and could possibly pay up to $300 million in total if other states accept similar agreements.
Alabama's suit was the latest in a wave of litigation targeting social media companies across the United States over the harm their apps allegedly cause young users.
In August, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle a sweeping lawsuit brought by US states accusing it of designing Instagram and Facebook to get children addicted.
TikTok's settlement with Alabama mirrors safety provisions agreed by Meta, including a two-hour daily time limit for teens, restricted access from midnight to 6:00 am, and suspending notifications during school hours.
It will also strengthen age verification, ban beauty filters for teenagers, and offer young users a non-personalized content feed.
In addition, it includes a conditional restriction that Meta also agreed to: expanding the nighttime shutdown period to 10:00 pm to 7:00 am, if other platforms also commit to do the same.

More suits pending

"TikTok's priority has always been fostering a safe and positive space where people can be creative, discover what they love, and connect with their community," a company spokesperson told AFP.
"This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens," the spokesperson added.
More than a dozen other states, including California and New York, still have active suits against TikTok.
The company has previously settled cases against it that were headed for trial, including a Los Angeles lawsuit brought by a young woman and a suit from a Kentucky school district.
Meta, by contrast, has taken its chances in court -- with bruising results.
In March, a jury in New Mexico ordered the Facebook and Instagram owner to pay $375 million after finding it had misled the public about the safety of its platforms for children.
That same month, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google's YouTube negligent in the case of a 20-year-old woman who said she became hooked on social media as a child, awarding her $6 million.
Going to trial would have exposed TikTok to unprecedented public scrutiny of how it handles safety internally, with company documents and executive testimony potentially aired in open court.
Alabama originally sued TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance in April 2025, alleging the app was engineered to hook young users "just like a sophisticated gambling machine."
The state later narrowed its case to claims under Alabama's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, focusing on whether TikTok misrepresented the effectiveness of features such as "Restricted Mode" and "Kids Mode."
Despite TikTok's assurances that users in that mode should not see mature themes, the accounts were quickly served videos about suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, alcohol and sex, according to the filing.
arp-bl-des/jgc

fbl

Brazil team returns to Colombian site of doomed jet crash

  • Chapecoense returned to Colombia this week for a friendly against Atletico Nacional on Saturday and to attend a tribute to the crash victims.
  • Ten years after a plane carrying Brazil's Chapecoense football team ran out of fuel and crashed in Colombia, the club returned to the disaster site on Friday to attend a tribute to the 71 victims.
  • Chapecoense returned to Colombia this week for a friendly against Atletico Nacional on Saturday and to attend a tribute to the crash victims.
Ten years after a plane carrying Brazil's Chapecoense football team ran out of fuel and crashed in Colombia, the club returned to the disaster site on Friday to attend a tribute to the 71 victims.
Only six of the 77 people on board the plane survived one of the worst tragedies in the history of football, on the night of November 28, 2016.
Chapecoense were en route to the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final against Colombia's Atletico Nacional in Medellin when their plane crashed into a mountain on the outskirts of the city.
Only three players from the 22-strong squad survived.
The match was to be the biggest in the history of the southern Brazilian side, and they had been tipped to win.
Chapecoense returned to Colombia this week for a friendly against Atletico Nacional on Saturday and to attend a tribute to the crash victims.
On Friday the team will inaugurate a memorial engraved with the names of the dead.
They were joined on the trip by Helio Neto, a former defender who survived the crash.
Miguel Ramirez, a Colombian farmer who was first on the scene of the disaster 10 years ago, told AFP he still hears the "cries of people calling for help."
Pieces of the plane's fuselage can still be seen near the crash site.
After the tragedy, Chapecoense was awarded the Copa Sudamericana by regional football body Conmebol at the request of Atletico Nacional.
The two teams met again five months later to compete for the 2017 Recopa Sudamericana competition, which was won by the Colombian team.
mvl/als/cb/mlm

food-drink

El Nino rewrites the menu in the world's top restaurants

BY ANNA CUENCA

  • El Nino "is changing everything," warned Dominique Crenn, a French-born chef in San Francisco, where Atelier Crenn uses its menu to stress the gravity of the situation to customers.
  • A record-breaking El Nino will likely force the world's top chefs to rethink their menus ahead of droughts, floods and heatwaves upending global food systems.
  • El Nino "is changing everything," warned Dominique Crenn, a French-born chef in San Francisco, where Atelier Crenn uses its menu to stress the gravity of the situation to customers.
A record-breaking El Nino will likely force the world's top chefs to rethink their menus ahead of droughts, floods and heatwaves upending global food systems.
Ants are disappearing from the table in Brazil, one Danish chef is opting for cocoa-free chocolate and Japan is serving up warm-water fish, culinary stars disclosed at the Apapaxoa gastronomic festival on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
United Nations experts have predicted an exceptionally strong cycle of the El Nino climate phenomenon, which causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions.
The cream of the culinary crop, looking ahead to unpredictable ingredient availability, quality and prices, are rearranging their shelves accordingly.
But for these acclaimed chefs, extreme weather events and their habit of turning the kitchen upside down are nothing new.
"In the last three years, I've been creating an annual menu that I end up adjusting many times, almost weekly, because certain products aren't available," Brazilian chef Alex Atala told AFP.
"Ants, for example, this year are only available for customers who specifically ask to try them," said Atala, whose Sao Paulo restaurant D.O.M. plucks ingredients from the Amazonian wilderness to reinterpret Indigenous traditions.
El Nino can also massively disrupt transportation, said Atala.
Flooded roads or wildfires "delay a product that should be fresh, and by the time it arrives, it's no longer in good condition," he said.

'People just don't come anymore'

The renowned Brazilian chef also emphasized the "cultural loss" provoked by El Nino, referring to the disappearance of tradition along with the unavailable ingredient.
The climate crisis has wreaked havoc on the Mediterranean, says Spain's Quique Dacosta, whose restaurant in the port city of Denia sits near Valencia, which was pummelled by torrential rain in 2024.
Almost 250 people died, while vineyards, orange groves and plots used to grow Albufera rice, an essential paella ingredient, were decimated.
An event of such intensity "directly attacks the raw materials that are the natural foundation on which we build our cuisine," Dacosta told AFP.
Footfall also takes a hit, he said, noting that a stormy season has once again descended and fearful customers are canceling their reservations.
"It's going to rain a lot and people just don't come anymore -- imagine how vulnerable our businesses are," he said.

'First year without hurricanes'

While El Nino ramps up weather conditions in some parts, it produces a vacuum in others.
"This is the first year without hurricanes" in the Mexican Caribbean, said chef Roberto Solis.
While Hurricane Polo hurtles around the Pacific, there isn't a trace of the usual cyclones off Mexico's opposite coast, near Solis's native Yucatan.
"Hurricanes carry moisture and move ocean currents and plankton," he said, noting the consequences for seafood dishes at his restaurant Huniik, where he reimagines Mayan specialties.
Danish chef Rasmus Munk has a reputation for inventiveness and is calling on his peers to think about future food resilience.
His Copenhagen restaurant Alchemist is experimenting with chocolate alternatives because "the chocolate market is also under pressure," he said.
"The non-chocolate we're making now, we make it from BSG, which is the brewer's spent grains," he added.
The fibrous leftover from beer production also serves as a "local alternative," Munk said.

Rationing water

Japanese cooks are working with a brand-new selection of seafood, since El Nino has altered ocean migratory routes.
"In Japan it's not a problem, there's always product available," said Yusuke Takada, who combines Japanese ingredients with French cooking techniques in La Cime, Osaka.
But concern is the prevailing mood among the culinary greats gathered in Mexico.
El Nino "is changing everything," warned Dominique Crenn, a French-born chef in San Francisco, where Atelier Crenn uses its menu to stress the gravity of the situation to customers.
The weather pattern "hits Colombia very hard," echoed Alvaro Clavijo.
At Clavijo's Bogota-based El Chato, ingredients like cacao pulp and Andean tubers are already running low.
But the chef is most worried about water shortages, recalling a severe drought in 2024.
"Two years ago rationing already started to be felt, and that in a restaurant is super complicated," he said.
acc/jt/dga/mel/cc/des

diplomacy

Pope calls worshippers 'saints of France' after AI warning

BY ERIN FLANAGAN, CLEMENT MELKI AND CLAIRE GALLEN

  • In a time of tense transatlantic ties and as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags on in its fifth year, Pope Leo urged France to remain a "tireless champion of peace". 
  • Thousands of worshippers cheered Pope Leo XIV on Friday as he stepped up to pray and called those gathered at a stadium near Paris the "saints of France", after urging world peace and warning against an AI-driven "paradise of machines".
  • In a time of tense transatlantic ties and as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags on in its fifth year, Pope Leo urged France to remain a "tireless champion of peace". 
Thousands of worshippers cheered Pope Leo XIV on Friday as he stepped up to pray and called those gathered at a stadium near Paris the "saints of France", after urging world peace and warning against an AI-driven "paradise of machines".
"The Church of France needs you," he told the worshippers, who were aged between 17 and 35. "Thank you for your courage, thank you for your presence, thank you for your faith."
"You are the saints of France," he added, after golden fireworks exploded above the Stade de France following a reenactment of the country's Christian history.
Only around five percent of France's 69 million residents go to Catholic church services regularly, a survey found last year.
But while the number of infants getting baptised has dwindled in recent years, more teenagers and adults are taking the plunge.
Earlier in the afternoon, the pope crossed central Paris in his popemobile on the first official papal visit to the European nation in 18 years.
Some balconies and pavements were decked out in the Vatican's yellow-and-white colours.
"He's here!" one person cried as the popemobile passed by, under a clear blue sky. "Look, it's the pope, this is crazy," said another.

'Feel it in my heart'

The Vatican estimated around 300,000 people had come out to see the pontiff.
Terry Spytek, 83, travelled all the way from the United States to see the pope for just three seconds -- but she said it was worth it.
"I feel it right here, in my heart," she told AFP. "I feel very touched even if it was a very quick glance."
People rushed forward to kiss the hand of the first US pontiff before he entered Notre Dame Cathedral, which only reopened in 2024 following a fire in 2019.
One million people are expected at events across Paris during the first two days of his trip, as he marks the first official trip by a head of the Vatican since Pope Benedict XVI in September 2008.
Leo's predecessor Francis visited France three times, but never officially.
The high point of the apostolic journey will be a Mass on Saturday led by the pontiff at Place de la Concorde and adjoining Champs-Elysees.
The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics will also visit the pilgrimage site of Lourdes, where he will privately meet victims of sex abuse by clergy, and Metz near the German border, where he is to speak about peace in Europe.

'Authentic secularity'

The much-awaited parade came after Pope Leo spoke at the presidential palace on the need to safeguard humanity against artificial intelligence.
"If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment," he said beside President Emmanuel Macron.
In a time of tense transatlantic ties and as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags on in its fifth year, Pope Leo urged France to remain a "tireless champion of peace". 
In a proudly secular country that has for more than a century separated church and state, Pope Leo stressed that "authentic secularity" should not exclude religion "from the public sphere or from education".
Politicians have in recent years often invoked France's brand of secularism to justify bans on religious symbols, including Muslim women's attire, in public spaces and schools.
After France passed legislation in June granting some adult patients the right to assisted dying, the pontiff warned against turning science "into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one's own death".
burs-ah/jxb

conflict

From FBI warning to literary acclaim: the Russian journalist who took on Putin

BY ANNA SMOLCHENKO

  • "They were the first FBI agents I'd ever met."
  • When two FBI agents showed up on the doorstep of Roman Badanin's California home in the autumn of 2025, they were smiling but the message they delivered was troubling.
  • "They were the first FBI agents I'd ever met."
When two FBI agents showed up on the doorstep of Roman Badanin's California home in the autumn of 2025, they were smiling but the message they delivered was troubling.
Badanin, an exiled Russian journalist who has spent more than two decades investigating President Vladimir Putin and his entourage, could become the target of an attack by a "foreign intelligence service", the agents warned. His wife and four children could be at risk, too.
"I wasn't scared but I was surprised," Badanin, 49, told AFP in an interview in Paris. "They were the first FBI agents I'd ever met."
Along with his colleague Mikhail Rubin, Badanin wrote a taboo-breaking book about the Russian leader's rise to power and private life, titled "The Tsar in Propria Persona: How Vladimir Putin Deceived Us All".
Last month, the French edition won the Grand Prix Strasbourg, a new literary award.
The jury said the 800-page tome reads "like a spy novel", describing the exhaustively researched account of the alleged web of lies, corruption, extramarital affairs and links to organised crime under Putin as both "fascinating and shocking".
"This book is exceptional in more ways than one," said the French publisher, Les Arenes, hailing "the true story of a man who places himself above morality and human laws".
- 'Putin is not stupid' - 
For the authors, the recognition is tinged with regret.
For years Badanin, founder of an investigative media outlet called Proekt, and his team chronicled abuses committed by Putin, his inner circle and Russian security services. 
Yet much of the world preferred to look the other way, the authors argue.
Then Putin invaded Ukraine and the West finally began paying attention.
"All the atrocities that the Kremlin routinely committed inside Russia began to spill beyond its borders, on a vastly different scale," they wrote.
Another source of frustration for Badanin is what he sees as the poor quality of some Western analysis on Russia. 
He also warned against underestimating 73-year-old Putin, who has been in power since 2000.
"He's become the subject of ridicule," Badanin said.
"But no, unfortunately, Putin is not stupid. And Putin is not, apparently, cowardly."
He estimated that most people around Putin wanted the fighting in Ukraine to stop, saying commanders on the ground understood "the price of war".
"No-one tells us that FSB officers come to Putin and say, 'Let's attack Lithuania' or 'Let's push on to Lviv'", Badanin said, referring to the western Ukrainian city near Poland.
But, in Badanin's view, Putin became a victim of his own ambitions.
"Initially, he wanted a quick victory to strengthen his position in every respect, both at home and abroad." 
Putin, he said, had wanted to prove he was a "real man" using the Russian word "muzhik" which carries strong macho connotations.
"Let's spell out some important things about Putin. He is deeply driven by basic impulses -- in the sense that these human passions are not foreign to him but rather very much a part of who he is."
- 'I can't back down' - 
Four-and-a-half years into what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, the fighting in Ukraine shows few signs of ending.
European nations fear the Kremlin is preparing to escalate the conflict further in response to Western support for Kyiv.
Putin has now dug his heels in, Badanin said.
"What's going through his mind now? 'Everyone is against me. I can't back down'."
The book is based on interviews with around 300 people including members of Putin's inner circle. 
While Badanin built his career exposing corruption in Russia, he was astonished by some of what he learnt during his research.
He travelled to a Caribbean island to meet a Russian lawmaker who arrived on a yacht. The encounter left him struck by the sheer scale of the corruption and the sense of impunity among Russia's political elite.
"We're either idealists or idiots," he told Rubin after the four-hour interview.
Both were driven into exile after FSB officers raided their homes in June 2021. 
The following month, Proekt became the first Russian media outlet to be designated an "undesirable organisation".
The team is now working on a documentary about the FSB, which Badanin argues must be dismantled if Russia is ever to have a chance at a democratic future.
As long as the successor to the Soviet-era KGB is around, he said, he will not move his family back to Russia.
"It's the greatest threat to everything that's alive there," he said of the FSB.
Does he have any advice for France's next president, who will succeed Emmanuel Macron next year?
"Remember that everything you do with Putin will, first and foremost, be used by Putin to strengthen his own grip on power in Russia," Badanin said. 
"In theory, that could eventually lead to another war."
as/sjw/gil

justice

Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll finally has her damages

BY ADAM PLOWRIGHT

  • Carroll told AFP of the pay-out.
  • American journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll, the only person to successfully sue Donald Trump for sexual assault, told AFP she is finally free to spend the damages awarded to her from the US president.
  • Carroll told AFP of the pay-out.
American journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll, the only person to successfully sue Donald Trump for sexual assault, told AFP she is finally free to spend the damages awarded to her from the US president.
But she won't be splurging on herself. 
In late June, the US Supreme Court rejected what was thought to be a final appeal from Trump against Carroll's civil claim over a 1996 assault, meaning $5.6 million in damages which had been deposited by the president could be finally released to her.
But the fight did not end there for a woman whose seven-year legal battle against the Republican head of state has turned her into the standard bearer for dozens of others who have accused the US leader of sexual misconduct.
"So I have the money in my account, and Trump goes off his rocker and tries to bring a court injunction to get the money back!" Carroll told AFP of the pay-out.
"Why? Because he wants the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision."
Now, this week, "the Trump lawyers and the Carroll lawyers have now signed an agreement that the injunction is moot", the 82-year-old said in Paris, where she is promoting a French-language version of her book.
Although she can now spend the money, she says she has little need for it.  
"I don't buy stuff. I know how to be happy," she said, before joking about the possibility of AI-created Armageddon: "I mean, you don't really need a bunch of money now, not with the world ending."
 
- 'Not an easy moment' - 
 
A second, much larger pay-out from Trump is also working its way through the US court system, with Carroll promising that the money "is going to go to everything he hates" -- women's rights, minority rights, the environment. 
Damages of $83.3 million were awarded from a defamation case that Carroll launched against Trump after he denied sexually assaulting her in the changing room of a Manhattan department store and called her a liar. 
Carroll recounted her ordeal and her excruciating legal fight in her book last year -- "Not My Type" -- which showcases her talent for observation and acid humour that made her a well-known columnist in New York in the 80s and 90s.
The title was a reference to Trump's infamous statement about her when she first aired her allegations.
The fight, she says, has been "hard, every single minute".
"Some of it was thrilling. Some of it was exciting. Some of it was exasperating. Some of it I wished 100 times I wasn't there, and some of it was very funny," she explained. 
"But it was all hard. There was not an easy moment in seven years.
"I could do it because I didn't have children. I was older. I had nothing to lose." 
Seen by supporters as a feminist icon, Carroll says that, sadly, the lessons of her experience are how difficult it is to gain justice and how the hopes sparked by the #MeToo movement against sexual assault have evaporated.
"No woman would want to do this now. Do you see any women coming forward?" she asked. 
"We've seen the statistics (on convictions). We're not stupid. Women are laying low right now."
 
- Other accusers - 
 
Carroll also offers disturbing news from some of the other Trump accusers who she says form a "sisterhood", chatting via Zoom and checking in on each other.
Many of them came forward and spoke to the media or made public statements about Trump only to hear him say "terrible things" about them.
"I can think of three of the women who took it to heart, have never gotten over it, and their families don't know what to do. They don't know how to help them," she added.
As well as continuing to fight the defamation case, Carroll needed lawyers again in late May amid reports that a federal prosecutor in Illinois had opened a criminal case against her.
"I cleaned up the whole house and washed the toilets and got everything ready because I thought they were coming to arrest me. My lawyer was preparing me," she told AFP.
After days of anonymous sources briefing the media, the US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Boutros, publicly denied he had started an investigation.
Despite what she says are daily threats against her from Trump supporters, she finds peace in what she calls her "hovel" -- her modest rural home in upstate New York.
But she still can't understand why more powerful figures in the corporate world or civil society don't stand up to Trump. 
"I'm the only person who succeeded out of all these Americans... It makes no sense," she said.
adp/gil

Nations

Ireland's Gaza stance spills from Eurovision into football

BY PETER MURPHY

  • - 'Moral compromise' - Ireland has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, with sympathy often linked to the country's own history of British rule.
  • No Irish supporters in the stadium, no home match in Ireland and no pundits or Irish commentary on television: the country's strong support for the Palestinian cause is increasingly reshaping its sporting and cultural calendar.
  • - 'Moral compromise' - Ireland has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, with sympathy often linked to the country's own history of British rule.
No Irish supporters in the stadium, no home match in Ireland and no pundits or Irish commentary on television: the country's strong support for the Palestinian cause is increasingly reshaping its sporting and cultural calendar.
Ireland face Israel in football's Nations League in Hungary on Sunday before a designated Irish "home" game in Serbia on October 4, amid protests and calls for a boycott over Israel's war in Gaza.
Sunday's match comes days after national broadcaster RTE confirmed Ireland would again boycott the Eurovision Song Contest next year because of Israel's participation.
But contractual obligations mean it must show the football matches.
The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has, meanwhile, declined its ticket allocation for Irish supporters for Sunday's fixture.
The game is being staged in Debrecen, Hungary, because Israel cannot currently host international matches, while the reverse fixture was shifted from Dublin to Backa Topola, Serbia, and will be played behind closed doors.
"It is highly unusual for a state broadcaster to show a major international match while stripping away punditry" and the other usual elements, said Neil O'Boyle, an associate professor at Dublin City University specialising in sport and media.
RTE faced "a unique dilemma", he told AFP, between its contractual obligations and "intense pushback from the Irish public and some of its own staff".
"The 'silent' broadcast is intended as a kind of moral compromise," he said.

'Moral compromise'

Ireland has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, with sympathy often linked to the country's own history of British rule.
Research published this year by political scientist Liam Kneafsey and colleague Miceal Canavan found Ireland a clear outlier in western Europe.
Their study, based on a representative survey conducted in late 2023, found 53 percent of Irish adults sympathised more with Palestinians and 11 percent with Israel, compared with around 27 percent pro-Palestinian sympathy in the next-highest western European country.
"Ireland's history of colonisation, partition and displacement gives people a ready-made template for understanding a distant and complex conflict," Kneafsey told AFP.
Such attitudes were "rooted in history and identity, not just a reaction to headlines", he added.
Dublin formally recognised a Palestinian state in 2024 alongside Spain and Norway, and has repeatedly criticised Israel's conduct in Gaza.
More than 160 Irish sportspeople have signed a letter urging the national team to boycott the football games, while protests have targeted the FAI and players.
Manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has acknowledged players are uncomfortable about the fixtures, saying: "We're not playing with genocide. We're playing against genocide."
Israel's football federation accused him of "stupidity, ignorance and hypocrisy", remarks Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheal Martin on Tuesday called "unacceptable".

'Outrage'

Amnesty International Ireland's executive director, Stephen Bowen, said UEFA should have suspended Israel, arguing that Israeli clubs operating in occupied Palestinian territory breached football's rules.
"It shocks the conscience that Ireland has to play these fixtures," he told AFP.
"Upset and outrage here in Ireland at these matches is palpable."
But former Irish justice minister Alan Shatter strongly rejected the boycott campaign.
"It's a scandal that a group of obsessed political activists have created a situation where our home game is now taking place behind closed doors in Serbia," he told AFP.
Shatter said the FAI should have staged the fixture in Dublin with police protection and accused campaigners of placing players under unacceptable pressure.
The FAI itself requested last year that UEFA suspend Israel but received insufficient support from European football's governing body.
It says refusing to play could bring sporting and financial sanctions.
Israel strongly rejects allegations that its conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide.
It launched war on Gaza in response to a Hamas attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023, that resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,900 people there, according to the occupied Palestinian territory's health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
pmu/jdg/jkb/gl

conservation

Cash for nature protection: hotelier's offer to Principe islanders

BY LéA NKAMLEUN FOSSO

  • - Nature's guardians - His business model depends on preserving Principe's pristine natural environment.
  • On the paradise island of Principe, a lush jungle haven in the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Guinea, a South African multimillionaire is offering locals a financial dividend to preserve the natural beauty on which his luxury tourism business depends. 
  • - Nature's guardians - His business model depends on preserving Principe's pristine natural environment.
On the paradise island of Principe, a lush jungle haven in the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Guinea, a South African multimillionaire is offering locals a financial dividend to preserve the natural beauty on which his luxury tourism business depends. 
The initiative is the brainchild of tech entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who for over a decade has been promoting a model of exclusive ecotourism aimed at an ultra-wealthy foreign clientele. 
The dividend scheme, which Shuttleworth's charitable organisation pays out individually to locals, aims to encourage them to preserve their natural environment -- a mountainous volcanic island, bordered by pristine beaches and whose tropical forest is home to a wealth of endemic species.
In return for agreeing in writing not to engage in environmentally damaging activities like sand extraction or unregulated logging, adults can receive up to 6,250 dobras ($290) per quarter -- the equivalent of around $3.20 a day.
It represents a bonus in a tiny country where 45 percent of the population lives on less than $3.60 a day, according to the latest World Bank data from 2017.
But some critics say the initiative is a missed opportunity to work with the government to address the island's economic and social needs.
"I've just received the first quarterly payment. At 900 dobras it's definitely not a salary but it'll help," grinned 23-year-old technician Ermelindo Mendes, talking to AFP from his village of Monte Alegre in the lush hills. 
The whole of Principe, part of the archipelago of Sao Tome and Principe, is an internationally recognised UNESCO biosphere reserve.
Staying in one of Shuttleworth's four hotels on the archipelago can cost up to $1,700 a night.
The hotelier promises his guests -- most of whom are European -– a luxury experience discovering a "hidden west African paradise".

Nature's guardians

His business model depends on preserving Principe's pristine natural environment.
So in February, to enlist the support of the island's 10,000 inhabitants, Shuttleworth began offering them a small nature dividend via his charitable organisation, the Faya Foundation.
The locals are "nature's principal guardians. We need them on our side", said Vik Michau, a sociologist with the Foundation.
None have yet earned the maximum dividend of $290 per quarter.
"Data monitoring shows the natural environment isn't in an optimal state yet," Michau said.
To earn more, locals need to reforest the island and make what she described as "better choices regarding the natural environment".
Every year, 15,000 tourists visit the 140-square-kilometre (54-square-mile) island.
Many book the luxury package offered by Shuttleworth's HBD (Here Be Dragons) group.
"Most visitors are looking for nature, tranquillity and peace -- everything the region has to offer," said Wander Dias de Sousa Pires, the head of the Principe tourist board.

'We see the suffering'

But for the inhabitants of one of the world's poorest countries, the picture-postcard scenery masks a precarious daily struggle, beset by logistical difficulties and affected by distant geopolitical events over which they have no control.
"People who come here look at the scenery and say to themselves: 'This is paradise.' But those who live here see the suffering," said Conceicao Moreno, a 46-year-old member of parliament.
"We face utterly degrading social and economic conditions. The cost of living is very high, we have no access to quality healthcare or education and the roads and most of the infrastructure are in a state of disrepair," he said.
Moreno declined to take part in the dividend programme, wary of the "relationship of domination" the grant might entail and unconvinced of its benefits to the recipients.
"The amounts paid out are too insignificant to have any impact on a family's survival," he said.
"They should have partnered with the government to offer social progress and infrastructure that would guarantee the island's development".
Michau said this view was to misunderstand the purpose of the foundation's "pioneering experiment".
The dividend is "not a salary" and charitable work cannot take the place of the state, she said.
"We are a private organisation, not the government. We have drawn a very clear line between what falls within the government's remit, what we do here and where we can help."
lnf/cc/gil/kjm

environment

India's 'Tree Father' plants for a greener future

BY PETER MARTELL

  • "When I was young, I planted saplings like a soldier," said Swami Prem Parivartan, better known as "Peepal Baba", or "tree father", rubbing earth between his fingers and mixing wet mulch around the sapling's base.
  • With Delhi's choking haze hanging overhead, Peepal Baba presses a young tree into the earth, continuing a nearly half-century mission to restore India's vanishing green cover.
  • "When I was young, I planted saplings like a soldier," said Swami Prem Parivartan, better known as "Peepal Baba", or "tree father", rubbing earth between his fingers and mixing wet mulch around the sapling's base.
With Delhi's choking haze hanging overhead, Peepal Baba presses a young tree into the earth, continuing a nearly half-century mission to restore India's vanishing green cover.
"When I was young, I planted saplings like a soldier," said Swami Prem Parivartan, better known as "Peepal Baba", or "tree father", rubbing earth between his fingers and mixing wet mulch around the sapling's base.
It is the latest tree among millions that his teams estimate to have planted.
"What started as a solitary act of planting became contagious," he said.
At 60, he has turned a childhood fascination with trees into one of India's largest grassroots planting movements. 
"We did not wait for governments to act," he said. "We gathered friends, volunteers, wanderers, believers."
In Delhi, a sprawling megacity of 30 million people with scorching summers and toxic winter air, his answer to environmental despair is stubbornly simple -- plant a tree, keep it alive, then plant another.
"Whatever little we can do for the environment, we have to do," he said, beaming a warm smile.

'Cooling towers'

Exactly how many trees he has planted, and how much land has been restored, are not his focus.
His trust estimates it has restored vegetation across more than 270,000 hectares, or 2,700 square kilometres -- more than twice the size of Delhi and nearly as large as California's Yosemite National Park.
The organisation says it has planted or preserved 26 million trees.
But he insists numbers and exact areas are not the point.
"I never counted shade in digits," he said. 
"It is not about planting one tree or two trees or 1,000 trees. It's about how you manage the land on which those plants have been planted."
His fascination with trees was nurtured by his grandmother and a garden he loved tending.
He planted his first trees on his 11th birthday, including a peepal, or Ficus religiosa, a tree with vast spreading roots, sacred to several of India's religions.
Peepal trees have provided shade for village meetings, temples, tea stalls and markets for centuries.
He calls them "cooling towers of human hope" in his 2026 autobiography.

'Touch the soil'

He put aside a career in academia after university.
Instead, he set off across India by scooter to encourage people to grow trees -- and his nickname came from a villager he met while planting.
"Peepal Baba", he decided, carried more authority than "environmentalist", which he regarded as a foreign-sounding word at the time.
"My nickname travelled faster than my scooter," he writes.
That scooter carried him across India multiple times.
From his notebooks, he estimates he travelled nearly 540,000 kilometres (335,500 miles) -- enough to circle the Earth more than 13 times.
He slept wherever he found shelter -- in temples, homes, bus shelters or beneath a peepal tree.
Long sustained by individual and community donations, the trust has in recent years also brought on major corporate donors to expand its work.
With more than 1.6 million Instagram followers, he now also spreads his message through social media and a growing network of volunteers in the field.
His philosophy has expanded from planting trees to restoring the soil that sustains them.
"Every civilisation that respected its soil prospered; everyone that ignored it perished," he said.
"We've built skyscrapers tall enough to touch clouds, but forgotten how to kneel and touch the soil."
For him, the task remains simple: plant a tree, care for it and make sure it survives.
"When people ask, 'How many?', I answer, 'As many as it takes to give the Earth a second chance'."
pjm/pbt

transport

Rebellious Afghan taxi drivers defy ban on music

BY QUBAD WALI

  • The ban on music in public places is imposed by the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Ministry, whose morality police roam the city wearing long white coats.
  • Taxi drivers in Afghanistan are turning on the tunes in their cars, defying a ban imposed by the Taliban government despite the fear of getting caught by morality police.
  • The ban on music in public places is imposed by the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Ministry, whose morality police roam the city wearing long white coats.
Taxi drivers in Afghanistan are turning on the tunes in their cars, defying a ban imposed by the Taliban government despite the fear of getting caught by morality police.
The music that used to flow constantly out of restaurants, cafes and shops in the capital Kabul has been muted for five years, replaced only by religious or patriotic songs supported by the Taliban authorities in power since 2021.
But taxi drivers such as Roeen have started playing Afghan and regional folk or pop music, which they quickly turn off when security forces may be around.
"At every checkpoint we pass, we lower the volume of the music or even turn it off completely... so I don't get into trouble with them," said Roeen, who gave only his first name for security reasons.
The ban on music in public places is imposed by the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Ministry, whose morality police roam the city wearing long white coats.
PVPV regulations state that "since music is forbidden and causes annoyance to passengers, drivers must refrain from playing or listening to it".
The ministry did not respond when asked to comment on punishments Afghans face for playing music, but those breaching their various other rules risk being jailed.
Roeen said PVPV officials have "a lot of authority".
"We're definitely too afraid of them to be able to listen to music at a higher volume," he told AFP in his sky blue-and-white taxi.
Driving through the heavy traffic and noisy roads of Kabul, Roeen said he has "become 10 times more interested in music" since the ban.
"I have to make sure that even if I can't listen in the early morning, by eight o'clock my music is on," he said.
In a country where various forms of entertainment including cinema are outlawed, listening to music constantly is a "form of protest" for the 28-year-old driver.

'Stress' and no headphones

Another taxi driver, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told AFP he only listens to music when he is alone in his car and surrounded by the noise of other vehicles.
"Before, whenever a person wanted, they could listen without any worry or stress. But now... personally I listen -- but with some stress," he said in his car that had a radio player with a USB slot.
The 32-year-old has been stopped twice at checkpoints for having a USB stick and a memory card.
"I didn't lie -- I said it has music, and they broke it," he said.
"Afghan culture should not vanish, and music is one of the cultures of our people. Personally, I don't want this culture to disappear."
As part of their crackdown on banned music, the PVPV's provincial departments occasionally report burning instruments. No figures are available on how many they have seized, according to ministry spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber.
Across the capital, residents use shared taxis as an affordable way to get around a city which lacks a proper public transport system.
Often, two passengers sit alongside the driver in the front, three are in the back, and sometimes someone rides in the open boot.
Shamsullah Ahmad, a master's student, spoke to AFP while waiting for a taxi near his university.
"I prefer to listen to music every day; whenever I go to any destination, I try to check if the taxi has a music player," said the 29-year-old.
"I prefer music in the car, because wearing headphones would be noticed, but in the car, even with lower volume is better than nothing," Ahmad said.
The morality police have been known to take headphones out of Afghans' ears to check if they are listening to music.
Roeen, the driver, misses the days when "we could listen to songs, dance, and celebrate, and no one would stop us".
But now the city is "shrouded in darkness -- a darkness devoid of any light", he said, above the din of growling engines.
qb/rsc/ami

health

Hopping mad: New health warning stirs up Belgian brewers

BY MATTHIEU DEMEESTERE

  • The government wants to alter the current warning from "the abuse of alcohol is harmful to your health" to "alcohol is harmful for your health".
  • In a country famed worldwide for its beer, a proposed tweak to health warnings on adverts for alcoholic drinks has shaken Belgian brewers.
  • The government wants to alter the current warning from "the abuse of alcohol is harmful to your health" to "alcohol is harmful for your health".
In a country famed worldwide for its beer, a proposed tweak to health warnings on adverts for alcoholic drinks has shaken Belgian brewers.
The change stirring up their discontent comes down to cutting just one crucial word.
The government wants to alter the current warning from "the abuse of alcohol is harmful to your health" to "alcohol is harmful for your health".
For Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, the move announced in spring -- which is still being debated in parliament -- is justified by the need to better protect minors and inform adults over the risks of drinking.
"Alcohol is harmful. Everyone is free to decide how much they drink, but as public authorities, we want to provide young people and adults with accurate information," he said in a statement to AFP. 
"That is the aim of this new warning." 
But brewers have railed against a push they say threatens to stigmatise a key sector of Belgium's economy. 
Leading the charge has been AB InBev, the world's biggest beer-maker, which produces local classics such as Stella Artois, Leffe and Hoegaarden.
Together with other industry players it has launched a campaign to sway public opinion in the Belgian press. 
In August, the group took out a full-page ad in local newspapers showing a smiling couple sharing a beer. 
"What's wrong with these moments?" read the strapline. 
An accompanying text took direct aim at the new warning, slamming it for not distinguishing between alcohol abuse and "responsible" drinking. 
"Belgium has chosen to take aim at its own traditions, which are a source of national pride," it said.

'Paternalistic'

The man behind the industry pushback is Krishan Maudgal, the boss of the Belgian Brewers association representing about 130 producers.
Speaking to AFP, he decried the government's "paternalistic" approach, saying that Belgians were able to moderate their consumption without government interference.
"Market trends show this," he said. "Over the last 25 to 30 years, beer consumption in Belgium has fallen by almost 40 percent."
But for some health experts in the country, the government's latest move doesn't go far enough. 
Belgium's Superior Health Council, which gives independent advice to the authorities, has been calling for years for a total ban on alcohol advertising. 
It also wants to see health warnings on bottles and cans, accusing the government of being too timid.
"Slogans used by the industry do not emphasise the dangers inherent in alcohol consumption sufficiently and even contribute to confusion," the council wrote in 2024, quoting the World Health Organization as saying that there is no level of alcohol consumption that is safe for one's health.
Alcohol addiction specialist Martin de Duve agrees, lashing out at "the irresponsibility of producers".  
"They're making a mountain out of a molehill; we're just talking about changing a single sentence in the adverts," the doctor, who runs a prevention charity, told AFP. 
He said that beer was "deeply ingrained in Belgian society."
"Yet it is by no means a harmless product," he said. 
mad/del/ec/pdw/cms