International report

Paris is the third-most popular destination in the world, after Bangkok and London, with nearly 40 million visitors every year.

How do those tourists, and the locals, get through the long, hot summer?

In the first episode of a five-part series, Arnab Béranger looks at some of the things you can do when it's summer in the city.

Starting with a trip to a cinema with a difference. The open air cinema at Paris parc de la Villette.

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

Around seven kilometres of the corniche along Dakar’s coastline are getting a make over.

Some 500 trees and 300 shrubs are being planted along the windy cliff edge road in a bid to "green" the city and encourage environmental protection.

The whole reforestation project was initiated by a Senegalese business woman, Maha Baalbeki, and offers member of the public the opportunity to sponsor and plant a tree.

Teens and young adults from a children’s association have been recruited as the guardians of the trees and will be tasked with watering and looking after all the new plantations.

Emmanuelle Landais has this report from Dakar.

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

Over the past decade, stand-up comedy has become hugely popular in India.

The trend is picking up where comedians are emerging as a genuine and earthy oppositional voice. They don't just speak truth to power, but also poke fun and ridicule powerful egos.

Some of them have even come under fire for taking political swipes at the authorities.

At a time when large sections of the mainstream media, film stars, and entertainers are seen as being co-opted by the political establishment, a handful of comics are bucking the trend.

Correspondent Murali Krishnan has this report.

As daily power-cuts become the norm in Zambia, effects are being felt by households, farms and small businesses as well as in crucial industrial sectors such as mining.

Zambia still relies on hydro power for almost ninety percent of its electricity.

However, persistent drought has caused low water levels behind the country‘s main power generating dam, the Kariba.

Power rationing, commonly known as load shedding, unannounced power-cuts and fuel shortages have had a huge impact on Zambia’s fragile economy, with both domestic and commercial customers struggling to get used to the new order.

Kathy Short reports from Lusaka.

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

In the second part of our short series on clearing up thirty-three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, RFI’s Dhananjay Khadilkar speaks to Adam Higginbotham, author of the book Midnight in Chernobyl.

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

In Ukraine, the authorities recently formally inaugurated a new metal enclosure over the destroyed reactor of what was the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The gigantic dome covers the structure that was erected immediately after the explosion at the plant more than 33 years ago.

In the first of a two-part series, RFI's Dhananjay Khadilkar talks to one of the key figures involved in the dome project.

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

Predicting how many mangos will grow on your mango tree is no easy task.

That’s not an African proverb, it’s the harsh reality for mango farmers across Senegal.

To help farmers, scientists from France and Senegal are currently developing fruit recognition software for mango trees. With just 2 photos of a tree uploaded to a phone app, they’ll be able to estimate approximately how many mangos are on the tree.

It’s a digital tool that will revolutionise the mango market and help small-scale farmers get more for their harvest.

Emmanuelle Landais reports from Senegal.

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

In Senegal, young single people represent the high priority segment of the population according to experts in family planning. Yet they’re often excluded from awareness campaigns on sex education and sexual health, since sex outside marriage is taboo.

Today 23% of the population uses modern contraception.. but the goal to have 45% of the population using it by 2020, seems set for failure.  The government launched an outreach programme to help people adopt a family planning strategy and specifically to reduce maternal deaths, and space out pregnancies.

To do so, designated neighbourhood-godmothers have been assigned to go door- to- door and discuss contraception methods with couples and families.

Emmanuelle Landais reports from Dakar.

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

Part 2 of RFI's special report from the town of Sutherland Springs in the US state of Texas – the site of the deadliest church attack in the history of the state.

Our correspondent Colm Flynn traveled to Sutherland Springs to meet Pastor Frank Pomeroy to find out how the community has been rebuilding itself after the tragedy.

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

Over the past year, attackers have targeted places of worship around the world. In California, a synagogue was attacked on Passover. There was also an attack on a synagogue outside San Diego. In March mass shootings took place in mosques in New Zealand, and on Easter Sunday, churches in Sri Lanka were attacked.

But one of the deadliest church shootings ever in the US took place in a town called Sutherland Springs in Texas in November 2017, when a gunman stormed the church and fatally shot 26 people.

In a special two-part report, Colm Flynn travels to Sutherland Springs to meet Pastor Frank Pomeroy and find out how the community has been rebuilding itself after the awful tragedy.

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