Floods kill at least 25 and wreck homes in French Riviera

Rescuers combed wrecked cars and homes for bodies on the French Riviera after the worst floods in two centuries killed at least 25 people.

FOCUS

VENEZUELA

Hernan Castillo, author of a book linking Hugo Chavez to the FARC rebel group, is one of a number of Venezuelan thinkers leaving a hostile country they feel now resembles a police state for fear of persecution for their political views.

NIGER

The referendum worries the media and opposition

Niger's citizens are voting in a referendum to change the constitution to allow President Mamadou Tandja to remain in power until 2012. The opposition and media are worried that it is anti-democratic.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Fatah looking for fresh start at first convention in 20 years

More than twenty years after Fatah's last convention, two thousand delegates of the Palestinian movement meet in Bethlehem in a bid to restore some of the legitimacy lost since the death of their late leader Yasser Arafat.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Gaza settlers, an unresolved problem

In 2005, Israel pulled out of the Gaza strip as part of a disengagement plan that left Israelis divided. Four years on, nothing has really changed or improved for former settlers in the region, some of whom consider themselves refugees.

31/07/2009 - GREECE

Wildfires hit southern Europe

Southern Europe has been hit by devastating wildfires this summer, with tens of thousands of hectares of countryside ravaged and countless homes damaged. Arson has not been ruled out. Focus on the situation in Greece and Spain.