International report

In January of this year, the Israeli public security minister, Gil'ad Erdan, announced a package of measures affecting the more than 6,000 Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli jails.

The new rules include water rationing and a reduction in the number of family visits.

Click on the "play" icon above to listen to Rami Almaghari's report from Gaza.

 

*RFI asked for a reaction to this report from the Israeli prison service, but received no response.

Senegal is preparing to ratify UNESCO's 2001 convention on the protection of underwater heritage: a heritage made up of sunken slave ships, fishing boats, transatlantic commercial vessels and warships, among others.

Some 1,000 sites of interest have been detected on the seabed.

The lack of national law on the protection of underwater objects has led to the looting of these shipwrecks by treasure hunters.

The convention offers a legal framework for member countries to protect their culturally and historically important vestiges of the past.

Click on "Play" above to hear Emmanuelle Landais' report from Dakar.

The first Central American caravan of this year, has arrived in Mexico City, with high hopes of reaching the El Dorado of the United States.

Many originally say they just wanted to settle in Mexico.

But the majority want to reach the Land of Opportunity.

From what has happened before, many are fully aware and under no illusions that they're not welcome in the United States, but can no longer tolerate the life they've left behind.

With little more than the clothes on their back, plus a bagpack and some threadbare sandals, they’ve decided to test the unknown.

James Blears met some of them upon their arrival in Mexico City in this report.

Some women in Zambia are up in arms against local jobless men, saying they are lazy and parasitic and are happy to  depend on women for their survival.

In a largely conservative society, Zambian women are starting to speak up, challenging the men to act with dignity and take responsibility for themselves in their relations and marriages.

Kathy Short has this report from Lusaka

Rosa Parks is credited with starting the American civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus.

But few people know that, nine months prior to Ms. Park’s arrest, a 15-year-old African-American girl named Claudette Colvin was arrested after she refused to vacate her seat on a Montgomery bus.

Colm Flynn went to hear Claudette's story in her own words.

Surrogacy is a growing trend amongst a certain section of Kenyan women.

The practice is intended to help infertile couples who are unable to conceive naturally.

According to the Nairobi In Vitro Fertilization Center, which offers the service, 20 couples commissioned other women to carry their pregnancy for them in 2010, the last year for which dependable statistics are available.

Statistics from the clinic show that 30 babies were born to surrogate mothers at about that time; a number that is believed to have risen since.

Some estimates suggest that hundreds of Kenyan women may now be carrying babies for other women.

Joseph Jira has this report.

It’s been 70 years since the United Nations launched its first peacekeeping mission in 1948.

Back then, peacekeeping missions only accepted men.

And that hasn’t changed much -- today, only only around five percent of peacekeepers are women.

But the UN is now trying to change that.

Benedict Moran has this report from Bunia, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Some of the most important artifacts were taken away from what is now modern-day Nigeria during the colonial era.

But they may soon be on their way back.

The Benin Bronzes, consisting of hundreds of pieces of works dating back several centuries, were plundered from the palace of the Oba of Benin, in South West Nigeria, by British forces in 1897 during a punitive expedition.

The works are spread around museums in Europe and the United States.

For several decades the Nigerian government and the Oba of Benin's Palace have been requesting the return of the artifacts.

Now a deal is being worked out with some European museums for their return.

Sam Olukoya reports from Benin city in Nigeria.

In the United States, there are more firearms than people.

And the right to own guns remains popular, especially in rural states like Alaska.

But the country's premier gun rights group the National Rifle Association,  has aligned itself closely with President Donald Trump leaving left-leaning gun owners looking for alternatives.

Correspondent Jacob Resneck profiles a new group: the Socialist Rifle Association.

On November 21st, 2018, exactly a year to the day has gone by since a coup led to the resignation of former leader Robert Mugabe, in Zimbabwe.

His resignation, this day last year....  was received with wild celebrations.... and many Zimbabweans entertained hopes, change was on its way.

A year later Zimbabweans feel cheated and nothing has changed and are debating if the country could be suffering as the coup was executed in November, a sacred month.

John Cassim reports from Harare, Zimbabwe