Monaco Journal - News from Monaco, Monte-Carlo and the world

President Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Thursday launched a final push for votes in working class heartlands of France after a pre-election debate marked by bitter clashes.

Toulon were dealt a hammerblow Thursday with news that South African winger Cheslin Kolbe will be sidelined for "several weeks" with a broken thumb.

Britain's controversial deal to send migrants and asylum-seekers to Rwanda has attracted a flood of criticism in the UK, with opposition politicians, campaigners and the UN refugee agency calling for the multi-million-dollar agreement to be scrapped.

An AFP team were the first journalists to discover the horrors of Bucha, a quiet commuter town near Kyiv occupied by the Russian army for over a month.

The cause of China's deadliest air crash in decades remains a mystery, with authorities giving few details in a preliminary report on Wednesday while enforcing strict censorship one month after the disaster.

Palestinian militants fired volleys of rockets from Gaza into Israel, which responded with air strikes in the early hours of Thursday in the biggest escalation since an 11-day war last year.

Canadian film-maker David Cronenberg has been shocking audiences for decades with his graphic "body horror" movies but he has now gone further by creating art from his own insides.

Fontaines DC's raw, romantic tales of Dublin street life marked them out as the Next Big Thing in rock. Moving to London in the pandemic has taken their music in a darker direction.

Floating on a river boat near a Liberian island, vet Richard Ssuna watches intently as animal carers wade towards the shore hurling fruits and imitating chimpanzee calls as they go.

The United States and its allies have warned the world: the next phase of the war in Ukraine will be long. And it will pose a daunting diplomatic task for Joe Biden, who must find a way to maintain unprecedented Western unity against Moscow -- for the duration.

President Emmanuel Macron and far-right rival Marine Le Pen on Thursday prepared for a final rush of campaigning before France's presidential election after an acrimonious debate where they clashed over relations with Russia and the Islamic headscarf.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in India Thursday touting job-creating investment but facing long odds to get his reluctant counterpart Narendra Modi to back Western action against Russia.

Ukraine's last defenders in devastated Mariupol are refusing to surrender, but have appealed for security guarantees with Russian forces on the brink of taking complete control of the strategically vital city.

Charles Leclerc is in for a momentous weekend if Ferrari's early season form holds firm in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with the team's tifosi ready to turn Imola into a sea of red.

Joel Embiid hit a stunning three-pointer with 0.8 seconds remaining to give the Philadelphia 76ers a shock 104-101 overtime NBA playoff victory over Toronto on Wednesday.

Shanghai logged eight official Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, reporting a mounting death toll even as daily cases appear to be tapering off and some residents are finally free to venture outside under an easing lockdown.

Former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith was appointed Thursday to head a new set-up for the New Zealand women's team following a damning review into the way the side had been handled.

Trying to prevent drug traffickers from hiding cocaine in cargo containers at Ecuador's main port of Guayaquil is becoming an increasingly expensive headache for police and exporters alike.

Queen Elizabeth II turned 96 on Thursday. Here are some of the key moments in her life.

As tempting as access to Elon Musk's wealth may be, Twitter is not eager to be ruled by a billionaire known for shooting from the hip with little regard for the consequences.

Tens of thousands of cannabis enthusiasts gathered in Denver on Wednesday to celebrate the ever-widening US legalization of recreational weed with plumes of pungent smoke, music... and a few grumblings about commercialization.

Oil began inching upward on Thursday after a day of losses over demand concerns linked to the Covid-19 lockdown in China.

In a country of baseball fanatics, Hanshin Tigers supporters are known as Japan's rowdiest -- so they are aching to cut loose as a pandemic ban on cheering drags into a third season.

Gun salutes will ring out Thursday to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 96th birthday, although the monarch herself was expected to mark the occasion with little fanfare.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces a test of Conservative party loyalty Thursday when MPs vote on whether he should be investigated for misleading them over the "partygate" scandal.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces calls to apologise for a colonial-era massacre when he visits the Indian state of Gujarat Thursday, 100 years after as many as 1,200 people were killed protesting against imperial rule.

When Ghada Sabatien set out to visit her uncle in a village near Bethlehem, she was not expecting to be caught up in the spike in violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Australia will not challenge Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's extradition to the United States and has confidence in the British judicial system, a senior government minister said Thursday.

A 72-year-old grandmother who named a popular snack after the "widow" of President Nicolas Maduro -- still very much alive -- has become the latest casualty of a Venezuelan hate speech law denounced by rights defenders.

Having lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, Netflix faces the new challenge of stagnation from a position of strength.

Masayo Isurugi settles into a booth on the sixth floor of a sleek Tokyo building, scans an ID card and waits for an automated system to deliver her late husband's ashes.

A senior Kyiv official on Wednesday accused the International Committee of the Red Cross of working "in concert" with Russia in Ukraine, a charge the organisation denied.