Feminists and human rights activists in Lebanon are speaking out against attempts to impose increasing restrictions on their lives in the name of "conservative values". This follows an attack on a woman at a beach in the southern city of Sidon, when an Islamic cleric and his followers told Mayssa Hanouni she didn't have the right to wear a bathing suit there before getting violent.

In Syria, the Islamic State group stands accused of executing a series of attacks targeting truffle hunters. Truffles, or 'sand truffles' as they're commonly known, grow in the desert and have become a sought-after commodity. FRANCE 24's Observers team delved into this issue. Journalist Mahmoud Naffakh provides further insights.

The International Space Station has rolled out the welcome mat for two Saudi visitors, including the kingdom's first woman in space. The pair is among a group of four that will spend about a week in space before returning to Earth. We take a closer look and speak to expert Jane Kinninmont about the political significance of the move.

Turkey's presidential election is headed to a run-off on May 28, when Recep Tayyip Erdogan will go head-to-head with the opposition's Kemal Kilicdaroglu. While the incumbent is in a strong position going into the vote, the opposition isn't giving up hope just yet. We take a closer look.

He's the most powerful leader since Ataturk founded the modern Turkish republic a century ago. After three stints as prime minister, the highly divisive and populist Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a third consecutive term as president in Sunday's elections. A champion of religious piety and low interest rates, his popularity has been hit by a cost-of-living crisis caused by rampant inflation. In this special edition, we take a closer look and speak to Deniz Yonucu from Newcastle University...

Israel is still being rocked by huge protests. The most recent rallies took place last Saturday, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets. On the table is a major judicial reform that Benjamin Netanyahu's critics say will concentrate power with the prime minister, and undermine Israel's system of checks and balances. Such is the scale of opposition to the government's plans that a growing number of Israelis are considering leaving the country altogether. We take a closer look.

The presidential election in Turkey is now less than a month away. Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu is hoping to unseat Recep Tayyip Erdogan and polls show the 74-year-old is expected to win a majority of votes in the first round on May 14. In a video that has gone viral, Kilicdaroglu announced he was an Alevi, a member of Turkey's main religious minority. Alevis are Muslims but are considered heretics by some Sunni hardliners. We take a closer look.

In Yemen, more than 900 prisoners were released this past week as momentum builds to end the nine-year conflict there. This is linked to the fact that the leadership in Saudi Arabia and Iran are talking to each other again. The two powers broke off relations seven years ago, impacting politics and conflict across the region. So now that diplomatic ties have been restored, what might change? We take a closer look and speak to Julien Barnes-Dacey, the Middle East Programme Director at the...

Lebanon's economic meltdown has plunged most of the population into poverty. It's now also threatening the country's security. As the currency has plummeted to new lows in recent months, salaries too have fallen, as prices rise. To make ends meet, soldiers are being forced to take on second jobs, or even desert their ranks. Our Beirut correspondents went to meet two of them. 

Is Bashar al-Assad's isolation on the world stage coming to an end? The Syrian dictator has been shunned by the international community since 2011, when his regime brutally crushed anti-government protests, triggering the civil war in Syria. But in recent months, a growing number of countries have been coordinating with Assad's government. Saudi Arabia is expected to invite Assad to the Arab League summit next month, 12 years after Syria was suspended from the organisation. Our Foreign...

Following weeks of mass protests and a day of nationwide turmoil, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yielded to pressure and agreed to postpone his controversial judicial reforms as of March 27th. This decision was a significant reversal for his government, which had fired the defense minister just a day earlier in response to his demands for a delay in the divisive law.

The two sides in Yemen's conflict have agreed to free nearly 900 people in a prisoner exchange. That deal comes less than two weeks after Saudi Arabia and Iran re-established diplomatic ties after years of hostility. The two regional powers have backed opposing sides in Yemen's war, and their rapprochement has galvanised efforts to end the conflict. We take a closer look.

Twenty years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the shadow of the war still looms large. As well as the destabilisation of Iraq and the wider region, the conflict also created a power vacuum that enabled the rise of the Islamic State group. In this special edition, we speak to Samuel Helfont, assistant professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College programme at the California-based Naval Postgraduate School and the author of several books on Iraq.

This week marks one month since the ground shook under southern Turkey and northern Syria. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake and subsequent aftershocks killed over 50,000 people, making it one of the deadliest quakes worldwide in the past century. Entire cities were flattened and millions of people were made homeless. But Turkey is nonetheless scheduled to go to the polls in two months' time. To discuss the political fallout of the quake and its potential impact on the election, we speak to our...

Iraq's government is going after what it calls "decadent content" on social media. Users of TikTok, Instagram and other platforms who are found to breach "morals and traditions" can now be jailed. The campaign was announced in January and so far, a dozen people have been arrested. Our correspondent Marie-Charlotte Roupie reports.

Protesters smashed windows of banks in the Lebanese capital Beirut this past week as the currency hit a new low against the dollar. The Lebanese lira has lost about 97 percent of its value, and more than 80 percent of the population live below the poverty line. Millions of people are struggling to make ends meet amid the financial turmoil. FRANCE 24's Beirut correspondents Rawad Taha and Serge Berberi met two such families in the once-wealthy neighbourhood of Ashrafieh.

In this special edition of Middle East Matters, we focus on the aftermath of last week's deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Tens of thousands dead and millions in desperate need of basic food-stuffs, water, shelter and medical aid - frustration mounts over the response of Ankara and Damascus - both governments stand accused of a lack of leadership and accountability, and of mismanaging relief efforts.

We bring you a special programme on one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Middle East in decades. Thousands have been killed after two massive earthquakes struck south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday. Relief efforts are still underway, with a host of nations sending aid, but time is running out to save as many people as possible. For more on the challenges for the humanitarian response, we're joined by Rony Brauman, former president of Doctors Without Borders. We also...

In East Jerusalem, locals are still coming to terms with the trauma of the attack that left seven people dead as they gathered to pray at a synagogue on January 27. That attack was followed by a second incident the following day, which injured two Israelis. Both attacks seem to be in retaliation for an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank earlier that week. The Israeli army says it targeted a particular house believed to be housing key members of Islamic Jihad who were...

Concern is growing for seven French nationals being held in Iran. Among them is Fariba Adelkhah, a researcher at Sciences Po university in Paris, who was arrested back in June of 2019, along with her colleague Roland Marchal. Marchal was released in 2020, but with political tensions on the rise in Iran, Adelkhah remains in jail. For more, we speak to Sandrine Perrot, a researcher at Sciences Po and a member of a group dedicated to securing Adelkhah's release.

Just weeks into the job, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's new coalition is facing a backlash over plans to overhaul the judiciary, with tens of thousands joining rallies over the past two weekends. Demonstrators say the proposed reforms, which would allow parliament to limit the power of the Supreme Court, are an attack on democracy. They're also concerned that the measures will set back minority rights. For more, we speak to Sally Abed, a member of the national leadership at Standing...

The UN human rights chief has accused Iran of weaponising the death penalty to frighten the public and crush dissent. The statement follows the execution of four protesters, two of whom were killed last weekend. The UN body says it has information that two more executions are imminent, with more than a dozen other people believed to be on death row. The Iranian regime is grappling to respond to months of unrest triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the...

In this special edition of Middle East Matters, we focus on the Kurds. Spread across four nations, they are the world's largest stateless ethnic group. Indigenous to the Middle East and numbering at least 35 million, the Kurds have sought to establish a homeland of their own since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. They have endured decades of bloodshed in Iraq and also faced state oppression in Turkey, Iran and Syria. We take a closer look at the history and location of the Kurds...

A polarising new film has been released worldwide on Netflix. "Farha", by Darin J. Sallam, tells the story of a Palestinian teenager during the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948. Supporters say the film tells a true Palestinian story, rarely seen on a mainstream platform like Netflix. But critics say it is inflammatory and smears the Israeli military. We take a closer look and get analysis from FRANCE 24's Oliver Farry.

A three-day general strike is taking place in Iran this week. It's a show of defiance, as the anti-regime protest movement approaches its three-month mark with no sign of abating. On Monday, the strike was observed in dozens of Iranian cities, from the capital Tehran to Isfahan, Tabriz and the Kurdish regions. Facing its greatest existential challenge since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian regime has responded with a crackdown. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands more arrested,...