Chinese dramatists stage new ways to prop up artistic freedom

Ougadougou Rescue workers have found no survivors in a rescue chamber deep inside a flooded zinc mine in Burkina Faso, the government and the mine owner said on Tuesday, all but extinguishing hope that eight missing miners could still be alive after a month.

While the majority of Swedes are in favor of joining NATO, there are others who even took to the streets in protest. They warn the decision is rushed and that Sweden should better stick with its tradition of neutrality.

Belarus has introduced the death penalty for attempted terrorist attacks. The move could affect opposition activists who are currently on trial.

An entrepreneurship association made up mostly of young women from South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is manufacturing soap from coffee beans. The group’s coordinator, Mademoiselle Solange Kwinja, says the product is a great success since it is now being marketed in Bukavu, the provincial capital.

Sri Lanka is in the grip of its worst economic crisis in decades, facing depleted petrol reserves, food shortages and a chronic lack of medical supplies. More than a month of mainly peaceful protests against the government's handling of the economy turned deadly last week when supporters of the former prime minister stormed an anti-government protest site in the commercial capital Colombo. We discuss the depth of protesters’ grievances, as well as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s chances of weathering the storm, with Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and activist Bhavani Fonseka.

After becoming the first French president in two decades to win re-election, Emmanuel Macron now has to convince enough voters to once again give him a mandate in next month's legislative elections. A centrist who this time has to face an unusually united left, Macron has to persuade the electorate to stick with free-market reform, while shedding his "too clever for his own good" image.