The North Korea rhetoric is angry -- but is conflict closer?
Updated 0741 GMT (1541 HKT) April 26, 2017
US warships and submarines are on the move. North Korea has carried out its largest ever live-fire drill. Washington and Pyongyang are trading inflammatory rhetoric on a weekly basis.
With all of this, it's hard to know if war is actually imminent or if these are the growing pains of US President Donald Trump's new administration figuring out how to deal with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un.
Daily reports of the fragile situation fuel worries that war is imminent. North Korea released what it claimed were photographs of its artillery drills. But, has it really reached a point of no return?
Just one spark
Analysts fear the situation is a tinderbox that could be set off by a small spark.
"The real question now is somebody going to make a stupid mistake, because some kind of minor escalation could get out of hand," said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
US moves missile defence to South Korea site amid tensions with North
Thaad system being deployed despite protests from local residents and China, which says it threatens security balance
The US military has started moving parts of its controversial Thaad missile defence system to a deployment site in South Korea amid high tensions over North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes.
The earlier-than-expected move prompted protests by hundreds of local residents and was denounced by the frontrunner for South Korea’s presidential election on 9 May.
The US and South Korea in 2016 agreed to deploy the “terminal high-altitude area defence” system to counter the threat of missile launches by North Korea. However the move has angered China, which says the advanced system will do little to deter the North while destabilising the regional security balance.Black man arrested for jaywalking ‘beaten in jail, stripped and mocked’ by Sacramento police officer, says lawsuit
Attack on Nandi Cain Jr by Sacramento police officer caught on film
When Nandi Cain Jr. was seen on video getting slammed to the ground and pummelled repeatedly by a police officer, that was not the end of his ordeal, according to his attorney.
A new federal lawsuit states that the 24-year-old was also placed on psychiatric hold and taken to an isolation cell of a county jail, where the officer and other employees beat him repeatedly, stripped his clothes off and made obscene comments. Cain was then left in the cell, where he spent hours without food, medical attention or a chance to make a phone call, the lawsuit says.
Cain filed a lawsuit Sunday alleging violation of his constitutional rights. His attorney, John Burris, said the officer arrested Cain simply because he's black, and later “engaged in dehumanising and derogatory conduct.”
'Indonesia is on the brink of disaster'
Indonesia's upcoming regional elections have been overshadowed by Muslim mass protests against the candidacy of Jakarta's Christian governor Ahok. The country is on a dangerous course, says Berthold Damshäuser.
The re-election of Jakarta's Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, the minority Chinese-Christian governor, is not the only uncertainty shaking Indonesian politics. The future of the county's secular democracy is becoming more unclear as Islamist groups gain more traction and visibility.
Ahok was accused in November 2016 of blasphemy by the "Islamic Defenders Front" (FPI) group, after he commented that "If you cannot vote for me because you're afraid of being condemned to hell, you do not need to feel uneasy, as you are being fooled." His critics say this was criticism of a verse from the Koran that could be interpreted as a warning for electing a non-Muslim leader.
Investigation: The 'sexual drug' that has seduced Senegalese women
In Senegal, some women have taken to inserting a powder — known locally as “tobacco” — into their vaginas as a way to bring about pleasure or to soothe aches and pains. This substance is produced and sold underground, with no regulation. Does this powder have negative health effects on its users, who are becoming more and more numerous?
A man living in Sédhiou, a region in southwestern Senegal, contacted the FRANCE 24 Observers team to tell us about the powder, which he said was being used by local women to “satisfy their sexual desires and to provide relief for aches and pains”. He added that the powder was extremely popular and that some women were using it like “a drug”.
FRANCE 24 contacted two women from the region who regularly use this substance to find out more about its effects.
China launches aircraft carrier, boosting military presence
China has launched a new aircraft carrier in the latest sign of its growing military strength.
It is the country's second aircraft carrier, after the Liaoning, and the first to be made domestically.
The as-yet unnamed ship was transferred into the water in the north-eastern port of Dalian, state media said. It will reportedly be operational by 2020.
It comes amid heated rhetoric between the US and North Korea and ongoing tensions in the South China Sea.
hina has had only one operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, which it bought from Ukraine and refitted.
The US has deployed warships and a submarine to the Korean peninsula, prompting an angry reaction from North Korea. China has urged calm.
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