Our Focus programme brings you exclusive reports from around the world, followed by comment and analysis from our newsroom in Paris. Monday to Friday at 7.15 am and 11.15 pm.
Kumbh Mela, the world's largest religious festival
The world's biggest gathering of humanity, the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage, is underway in Allahabad in India. It’s expected to draw millions, a lively and colourful affair, with Hindu religious men arriving by elephant-drawn carriages and scores of people ritually washing where three rivers meet. But the festival is a logistical challenge, with health and safety worries hanging overhead.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is favourite to secure a second term in next week's presidential poll. But five years after Karzai's first election, Afghans prepare to vote again in a country plagued by the worst violence since the fall of the Taliban.
In this edition: After charity head Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband were found dead in Chechnya in yet another murder of an NGO worker in the conflict-torn region, Focus looks at the dangers of being a human rights activist in Russia.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has long felt shielded from the threat of radical Islamists. But the July attacks in Jakarta and a recent shootout with suspected terrorists have dispelled this feeling of safety.
The recent suicide bombing near the French embassy in Mauritania's capital has once again highlighted terrorist activity in the country, something that newly elected president Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz has promised to fight against.
Since the beginning of this year, an estimated 200 people have been kidnapped in in Kenya. The police suspect the Mungiki sect to be behind this new worrying phenomenon, but others say the group is a convenient scapegoat.
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