Revisited

The Croatian city of Vukovar, on the banks of the Danube, has a painful past. Located on the border with Serbia, it was the scene of the first major battle in the 1990s Balkan wars. Four years before the genocide in Srebrenica and eight years before the war in Kosovo, Vukovar was the first city in the former Yugoslavia to suffer ethnic cleansing, in 1991. More than 30 years later, reconciliation between local Serbs and Croats is hindered by impunity for war crimes and the inability to agree on a common version of events. 

Fifty-three years ago, Bangladesh finally obtained independence from Pakistan, at the cost of a war that left nearly 3 million people dead. Since then, the nation has developed into one of Asia's most dynamic economies, thanks in particular to the textile industry. The garment industry brings in more than $55 billion a year, making Bangladesh the world's second-largest clothing exporter, just behind China. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the Bangladesh of today, a country that has fully embraced globalisation.

The Jordanian city of Zarqa has a strong Palestinian identity, with good reason. In 1948, with the creation of the State of Israel – what the Palestinians call the "Nakba" ("catastrophe") – some 750,000 people, or more than 80 percent of the Palestinian population, were forced to take exile in neighbouring countries as they fled the violence. Jordan took in around 100,000 of them, with many of these refugees settling in Zarqa, a desert area on the outskirts of the capital Amman. Seventy-five years after their exile, what relationship do they have with their homeland and with their host country of Jordan?

It was one of Spain's deadliest terrorist attacks in history. On the morning of March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded almost simultaneously at the Atocha train station in the Spanish capital Madrid. Nearly 200 people were killed and more than 1,500 wounded. Twenty years later, survivors of the incident are still waiting to know the truth behind the bombings.

A century ago, the "manufacture, sale or transportation, importation or exportation" of alcohol was strictly forbidden across the United States, a policy that left an indelible mark. Nine decades after the end of the Prohibition era, which lasted from 1920 to 1933, some states and towns in the United States still remain "alcohol-free". Our correspondent Fanny Allard reports.

In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, one road symbolises the complex relationship between Lebanon and neighbouring Syria: the aptly named Syria Street. With the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, Tripoli street also become a conflict zone. On one side, the Alawite district sided with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Sunni neighbourhood on the other side supported the rebels. For several years, the street was transformed into a battlefield. Young Lebanese living in Tripoli fought each other, ready to die for a cause that was not their own. Today, calm has returned to the street and communities that were once divided are learning to live together again.

An historic trial opened on January 8 for the West African nation of The Gambia. Ousman Sonko, a former high-ranking member of the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh, is in the dock in Switzerland for a series of alleged crimes against humanity committed between 2000 and 2016. Victims of the dictatorship have high hopes for the trial. FRANCE 24's Sarah Sakho and Simon Martin report.

As Taiwan heads to the polls for a presidential election on January 13, we look back at a dark chapter in the island's past. Almost 80 years ago, on February 28, 1947, tens of thousands of Taiwanese who had risen up against the government were murdered. It was the start of the "White Terror" period. For 40 years, the Taiwanese were deprived of their freedoms, wrongly imprisoned or even executed. In 1987, with the lifting of martial law, Taiwan began its march towards democracy, and three decades later a Transitional Justice Commission was set up to work towards reconciliation. Our correspondent Lucie Barbazanges reports on a past that continues to haunt the Taiwanese people.

Between 1952 and 1960 in Kenya, the Mau Mau rebels who rose up against British rule faced a brutal crackdown that killed thousands of them. Left out of the history books for decades, these independence heroes are now fighting for recognition before the last survivors die out. Our correspondents report.

Thousands of Silicon Valley employees have been laid off over the past year, often finding out the bad news by email. Hit hard by rampant inflation and over-hiring during the Covid pandemic, the US tech giants of the San Francisco Bay Area have faced one of the worst crises in their history. A few months ago, a banking crisis added to their woes, when Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt, before being rescued by the federal government at the last minute. Nevertheless, the tech sector – renowned for its resilience – is refusing to give in to defeatism, as our team reports.