Reporters

In Ivory Coast, would-be migrants who return home are known locally as "the cursed". With their dream of a better life abroad in tatters, they also face stigma and rejection from their families and communities. Yassin Ciyow and Guillaume Collanges went to meet them.

The Latin American nation of Ecuador has been experiencing an unprecedented security crisis for several months. In the port city of Guayaquil, now under the control of drug gangs, residents are living in fear.

In October 2023, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, women were allowed to participate in and vote at the Synod of Bishops, a religious gathering that had previously been reserved only for bishops. The landmark event came amid calls from feminists in many countries for the ordination of women priests and a more inclusive Church. Since the 11th century, only men have been allowed to be ordained as priests and perform the sacraments.

The US-Mexico border is the most dangerous land frontier in the world, according to the United Nations, but it's also the one with the most crossings. Since January 2023, 2.3 million migrants have been apprehended by border police after entering the United States illegally, an all-time high that does not include migrants who got through without being arrested or taken charge of, or those who died trying to cross. The situation has become unmanageable for Texas border towns like Eagle Pass, which has become the epicentre of these illegal arrivals. Our correspondent Fanny Allard reports.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made saving the Amazon rainforest – now a key condition for a trade deal between the EU and South America's Mercosur bloc – a priority for his government. A year after Lula came to power, his gamble has paid off: deforestation has been halved in the Amazon. But this success comes at the cost of sacrificing another ecosystem that's just as vital to Brazil: the Cerrado. This savanna has already lost half of its natural vegetation due to intensive farming, notably for soya and maize. FRANCE 24's Fanny Lothaire, Louise Raulais and Anne-Laure Desarnauts report.

Thirty years ago, more than 800,000 people were killed during the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Among them were several dozen members of Dafroza Gauthier's family. A few months later, the young woman and her French husband decided to track down those suspected of taking part in the mass slaughter who had taken refuge in France. Journalists Thomas Zribi and Stéphane Jobert followed the Franco-Rwandan couple in their quest for justice. They bring us this special 52-minute documentary.

UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is on the brink of collapse. Since the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the agency has come under suspicion, accused of being too close to the terrorist acts of Hamas. Many donor countries have suspended their financial contributions as a result. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, is fighting body and soul for its survival. For one month, our reporters followed him across the United States, the Middle East and Europe in his race against time to find the funding for the activities and salaries of his thousands of employees. This is their special 24-minute report.

From the post-war period until the mid-1980s, thousands of children were forcibly taken from their young Belgian mothers and sold to adoptive families by Catholic institutions. Today, many victims are desperately trying to trace their origins and demanding answers from those responsible for this scandal. Our correspondent Alix Le Bourdon reports from France and Belgium.

In Iran, the death of 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini triggered an unprecedented uprising that is still having repercussions. Arrested on September 13, 2022 by Iran's morality police for wearing an "ill-fitting" headscarf that did not fully cover her hair, Amini died three days later in hospital, provoking a wave of anger and protests across the country. A new generation of women is now daring to defy the mandatory Islamic veil law imposed by the mullahs. Who are these young women ready to break the law, and how do they differ from their elders? Our reporters Catalina Gomez Angel and Pouya Parsa Magham went to meet the Iranian women determined to fight for their freedom despite threats and intimidation.

Long dominated by the United States, the Asia-Pacific region is grappling with an increasingly assertive China. Tensions are mounting around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, both in the air and on the water, with numerous incidents of late involving Chinese fighter planes, collisions between ships and reefs being turned into military outposts. Filmed in Japan, China, Taiwan and the Philippines, our documentary explores a new "cold war" pitting President Xi Jinping's authoritarian China against the US and its democratic allies in the region. This high-stakes conflict encompasses territorial, political, economic and ideological dimensions, as the threat of a third world war looms on the horizon.