From Hollywood to Saudi Arabia, Leonardo DiCaprio to Paris Hilton: The scandal that enveloped the world
Updated 0150 GMT (0950 HKT) February 9, 2019
Billions of dollars in allegedly misappropriated funds. Millions spent on luxury handbags and jewelry. One hit movie, two mediocre comedies, a swanky New York condo, a $250 million yacht and a Picasso. Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton, Miranda Kerr and Lindsay Lohan.
It's a scandal bursting with juicy details, celebrity cameos and webs of confusing information. On February 12, prosecutors in Malaysia will begin unraveling some of it when the country's former Prime Minister Najib Razak appears in court on charges of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering.
Other alleged players in the scandal -- chief among them the international financier Jho Low -- remain at large, out of the reach of Malaysian and US authorities.
'The Taliban took years of my life': the Afghan women living in the shadow of war
Many women who lived under the Taliban’s misogynist rule are haunted by memories, especially as peace still feels elusive
Homeira Qaderi was ironing her headscarf for school when her father came to tell her she would no longer need it, because the Taliban had captured her hometown. For the next five years the group’s harsh rules meant she barely left the house.
A generation of women have grown up in Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled from power in 2001. But many of those who have guided the country through profound change, running schools, or as journalists or politicians, are haunted by memories of their brutal, misogynist rule.
“I cannot forget those years,” said Qaderi, 34, now a writer and activist who was recently appointed editor of the Afghan newspaper Rah-e-Madanyat. Her first venture into journalism, when the insurgents still controlled Herat, had brought a threat of a public lashing.
Venezuela: Maduro rejects humanitarian aid as nation starves
"We're no one's beggars," Maduro said as supplies were being stockpiled along the Colombian border. He has rejected calls from Europe and the Americas for fresh elections.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday that he would not allow "fake" humanitarian aid to enter the country. Convoys of food and medicine supplied by the US at the request of self-declared opposition president Juan Guaido have been brought to the Venezuelan-Colombian border.
"Venezuela won't allow the spectacle of fake humanitarian aid because we're no one's beggars," Maduro, Venezuela's acting president, said, despite evidence that many in Venezuela are going hungry due to widespread food shortages. People across the country have even begun to refer to their lack of food as the "Maduro diet," and have confronted him about it in public.
FRANCE 24 exclusive: The battle-hardened foreign jihadi brides trapped in Syria
Hundreds of foreign jihadi brides are being held in a Kurdish camp in northern Syria as the war to drive out the Islamic State (IS) group enters its final phase. As the only media group to gain access to the camp, FRANCE 24 spoke with these women.
Almost all of the women in the Kurdish-controlled al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria are foreign nationals who travelled to Syria at the height of the IS group’s so-called caliphate. They are held in a fenced off area away from the other camp residents.
These 'brides' tell FRANCE 24 that their husbands are either still fighting, dead or in prison.
In all, some 500 jihadi 'brides' and their children are at the camp, housed alongside approximately 30,000 refugees -- many of whom fled the reign of terror of the IS group.
JOURNALISTS, LAWYERS, AND ACTIVISTS WORKING ON THE BORDER FACE COORDINATED HARASSMENT FROM U.S. AND MEXICAN AUTHORITIES
FOUR PHOTOJOURNALISTS GATHERED on the southern side of the U.S.-Mexico border wall shortly after Christmas in Tijuana. They were there to document the arrival of the migrant caravans from Central America, the latest chapter in a story that had drawn President Donald Trump’s increasing outrage.
As the photographers waited in the dark, a pair of Mexican police officers approached.
The officers wanted to know the photographers’ names and where they were from. They asked to see their passports and photographed the travel documents once they were handed over.
Keeping Aztec farming traditions alive in Mexico
Chinampas, or man-made islands for crop farming, date back to Aztec times.
by Paul Biasco
Pedro Capultitla remembers when he was a child, running through his family's black pastures, a string in hand and a kite gliding above. Canals, canoes and native flora surrounded the ancient patch of farmland. Soft beneath his feet, the fields felt like home.
Three decades later, Capultitla stood on the canal-edge of his family's chinampa, a man-made island formed for crop growing. Chinampas date back to pre-Hispanic times in Mexico City's Xochimilco neighbourhood.
Xochimilco sits some 25km south of the city centre today, but it was once the agricultural hub of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.
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