China warned Western nations on Thursday they would "pay the price" for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

IOC senior member Dick Pound told German radio that China would allow athletes to speak freely during news conferences. He said politics does not factor into decision-making on events.

Archery is becoming one of the interesting, competitive games and recreational activities in the country. Introduced officially in Nigeria in 1997 after the Nigerian Archery Federation was founded, it got affiliated to the World Archery in the same year. Since then, professional archers and team coaches in Nigeria have been training new archers in order to get the country represented at international championships. Currently, the organisation has its eye set on the 2024 Olympics game in Paris.

The United States has announced a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing over China’s “egregious” rights abuses, a move the Chinese government has said would be met with “resolute countermeasures”.

Call it an Olympic-sized gamble. Ahead of Chinese New Year holiday travel and the Winter Games, authorities there are sticking to their zero-Covid policy. As Omicron tears through much of the rest of the world, can the coronavirus really be barred from the Beijing Olympics?

Uyghurs say China's treatment of the Muslim minority group in the remote Xinjiang region amounts to "genocide." They are calling for a boycott of the upcoming Games.

Over 200 NGOs and rights organizations have called for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. They have raised concerns about atrocities and human rights violations by the Chinese government.

While the International Olympic Committee has said that politics and sport do not mix, there are many examples to the contrary. Athletes have often been advocates for social change, while activists are angry about Beijing hosting the Winter Olympics despite rampant allegations of human rights abuses. More than 200 global groups have made a joint call for a diplomatic boycott. We take a closer look.

US announces diplomatic boycott of 2022 Beijing Olympics

Can Xi Jinping's China pull it off? Can happy pictures of a torch relay reduced to 72 hours and tightly cropped images of top-level competitions make the world forget about the empty seats, the Covid bubble, the artificial snow, the tight security and the pressure on sponsors over human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong?

January's summer 2022 Couture Fashion Week showcased the latest sartorial offerings from 17 labels, just over half the number included in the official calendar due to ongoing Covid restrictions. Dior's Maria-Grazia Chiuri offered an ode to embroidery at Paris's Rodin museum, Jean Paul Gaultier handed the reigns of his empire over to Belgian designer Glenn Martens, while Alexandre Vauthier embraced the Roaring Twenties as an homage to our collective resilience in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. FRANCE 24 takes you to the catwalks.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are being held in a "closed-loop" system, where participants and visitors are separated from the public because of Covid-19. It's the perfect environment to push the limits of modern technology and Beijing is showcasing a whole host of innovations, from 5G to robots and from 8K broadcasting to its digital currency, the e-CNY. Peter O'Brien takes us through some of the breakthroughs and controversies surrounding tech at the Games.