International report

This week, we’ve explored the various aspects of the drug trade culture in Mexico. We’ve seen that once you take folklore out of the equation, what’s left is a population at the hands of criminal organizations.

Civilians pay the price of drug cartels’ actions and feuds against each other.

This has gotten increasingly visible in Mexico, where various mass killings have been reported in the last few weeks. Alix Hardy is our correspondent in Mexico, and the reporter who has produced this series of broadcasts.

She spoke to RFI's Ollia Horton for an update on a very volatile situation and on what has been going on in the county of late.

Click the 'play' button above to listen to the audio report, or subscribe to our podcast by searching 'RFI international report.

In Mexico, journalism is a high-risk profession.

According to the organization Reporters without Borders, the country is one of the most dangerous for the media, just behind Syria and Afghanistan.

According to the NGO more than 140 journalists have been killed in the last 20 years in Mexico.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was sworn in less than a year ago.

He has promised to put an end to the country’s corruption and violence. But eleven more reporters have been killed since.

In the third part of our series, Alix Hardy reports from Sinaloa, a state known for its drug trade activity, where journalists have turned into targets.

Click the 'play' button above to listen to the audio report, or subscribe to our podcast by searching 'RFI international report.

The north-western state of Sinaloa has long been known as the cradle of the drug trade In Mexico. For over half a century, drug lords have been thriving in a region marked by major inequalities, where working for criminal organisations is often more lucrative than trying to find legal employment.

As their success story has unfolded, drug traffickers have influenced the local culture. Crime, money and glitz have become its most obvious attributes.

In Sinaloa for the second of this week's five reports, Alix Hardy takes a look at this unique set of customs and tastes, better known as "narcoculture".

Click the 'play' button above to listen to the audio report, or subscribe to our podcast by searching 'RFI international report.

The drug trade has created its very own rules and sub-culture in parts of Mexico. One man has become the face of it all: Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the world’s most infamous drug kingpin.

Last July, Guzman was sentenced to life in prison for running Mexico’s biggest cartel. But in his native state, Sinaloa, not much has changed. His organisation still floods the United States with heroin and other narcotics that cause more than 70,000 deaths a year. And he is still considered a hero there as Alix Hardy reports in this first of a five-part series.

Click the 'play' button above to listen to the audio report, or subscribe to our podcast by searching 'RFI international report.

At the start of August, Palestinians in Gaza took part in a march across Gaza City, marking what Palestinians call Folkloric Dress Day.

Palestinian traditional clothing is known for its colourful and skillful embroidery that goes back many decades.

Correspondent Rami Almeghari met with embroidery makers in Gaza city, where some Palestinians still wear traditional dress.

The Senegalese capital Dakar, which is predominantly French-speaking, boasts just a single dedicated English-language bookshop and library which started out, like many other good ideas, in a garage attached to a family house.

Today Angela Franklin from the US, stocks more than 3,000 books in her cosy library. She also hosts a summer reading camp for children to enable them to practice their English, develop their confidence and literacy.

Reading, she says, is that “non-battery-operated activity” that motivates the mind, body and spirit.

The summer reading program is a great experience for readers of all ages, as Emmanuelle Landais discovered when she went along.

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RFI’s Dhananjay Khadilkar reports from the recently-concluded IFA exhibition in Berlin which showcased the latest innovations and trends from the world of technology.

On Turkey's Black Sea coast, the harvest of around three quarters of the world's supply of hazelnuts is coming to an end.

It is hard and often dangerous work for the army of pickers who travel hundreds of kilometers to help with the harvest. Most of them are Kurdish from a region devastated by the decades-long conflict between the Turkish army and insurgents.

Dorian Jones reports from Turkey’s Eastern Black Sea province of Ordu.

Tunisian voters go to the polls next Sunday (15 September) to choose from a crowded field of candidates. The elections follow the death of President Beji Caid Essebsi in July.

This is an election that many anticipate with impatience, mainly because Tunisia’s democratic transition has failed to keep the promises of the 2010 Arab Spring.

This report from Alessandra Bajec in Tunis.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 14 countries produce wheat; Ethiopia and South Africa are the two main growers.

Although wheat production is minor compared to other crops, wheat demands have been growing steadily over the years, contributing to large deficits across the region that are currently being filled with imports and food aid from developed countries.

The International Wheat Congress was held in July in Sasketchewan Canada, and gathered agronomists and crop scientists from around the world to discuss ways of increasing wheat production in Africa and around the world.

Emmanuelle Landais attended the conference, and sent this report.

This is the third and final part of a short series.