Despite being one of Greece's best-known folk singers, Natassa Bofiliou is among thousands of artists worried about the economic impact of coronavirus lockdowns that have only just begun to be eased.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 30 different quotes attributed to public figures including French infectious disease expert Didier Raoult, French president Emmanuel Macron and Madagascar president Andry Rajoelina have been making the rounds on Congolese Facebook pages. But it turns out all of them were made up. The FRANCE 24 Observers team tracked down the source of these widely circulated fake quotes and discovered a 20-year-old keen to generate “a buzz”.

Russia marks 75 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Saturday, but the coronavirus outbreak has forced it to scale back celebrations seen as boosting support for the Kremlin.

In a mid-April report, the NGO Human Rights Watch cited UN statistics that the main prisons in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at 432 percent capacity, with Makala Prison in the country’s capital of Kinshasa at 461 percent. While media access to prisons in Kinshasa is denied, FRANCE 24 obtained amateur footage from Makala inmates and spoke with an NGO and a Congolese official about the potential for a major Covid-19 health crisis.

While residents of Benin haven’t been ordered to stay home like their neighbours in Nigeria, the Covid-19 pandemic has forced them to slow down nevertheless, putting many at risk of food insecurity.

Britain is to introduce a 14-day quarantine period for almost everyone arriving into the country to avoid a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic, The Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

Economic activity in France picked up slightly over the last two weeks as the country prepares to emerge from a coronavirus lockdown, but it remains a third below normal levels, the INSEE official statistics agency said on Thursday.

French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Thursday detailed his government’s plan for easing Covid-19 confinement measures on May 11, warning that the exit from lockdown would be gradual and targeted to stem a resurgence of the viral outbreak. 

A German journalist has accused former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of repeatedly grabbing her during an interview, and filed a sexual assault complaint with Paris prosecutors, according to French and German news reports.

France on Thursday recorded 178 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, a 0.7 percent rise from the previous day in the lowest rate of increase in four days, taking the total number of deaths to 25,987. 

With France now in its eighth and final week of full lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, FRANCE 24 brings you four reports on the consequences in Paris and around the country.

France on Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day with President Emmanuel Macron attending a scaled-down ceremony on Paris’s Champs-Élysées. Click on the player to see how the commemorations unfolded.

As France prepares to gradually end its Covid-19 lockdown on May 11, workers are busy installing dozens of kilometres of temporary bike lanes across Paris and surrounding suburbs, part of plans to prepare for – and encourage – an expected boom in cycling in the capital.

The number of people who have died from coronavirus infection in France rose 243 to 26,230 on Friday, a higher daily death toll than the previous day when it stood at 178.

In this edition of Middle East Matters, we continue our rolling coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic across the region. Jordan is flattening its coronavirus curve after a series of strict measures, including travel bans. We speak to Health Minister Saad Jaber, himself a doctor, about how he's managed the crisis. Also, deadly clashes erupt after hundreds take to the streets in northern Lebanon amid a crash in the local currency and a surge in food prices. 

Protests against growing economic hardship erupted in Tripoli and spread to other Lebanese cities on Tuesday, with banks set ablaze and violence boiling over into a second night.

At least 40 civilians were killed, including 11 children, when a bomb detonated in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Tuesday, the Turkish Defence Ministry said, blaming the attack on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Police in Istanbul detained at least 15 people Friday, including trade union leaders who tried to stage a May Day march in defiance of a coronavirus lockdown and a ban on demonstrations at the flashpoint Taksim Square.

Hundreds of Lebanese rallied Friday outside the central bank in Beirut and elsewhere in the country, a day after the prime minister said he would seek a rescue plan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deal with a spiraling economic and financial crisis.

We continue our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Middle East. Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the region – authorities there have reported more than 6,000 deaths. But observers and health experts say the numbers are in reality much higher. After weighing up economic risks against health ones, the country's leadership decided to reopen businesses in late April, followed by schools and mosques. We speak to a doctor from Tehran, who has been on the frontlines of the battle against Covid-19. He has asked for his identity to be concealed.

Iraqi lawmakers approved a new government on Wednesday after six months without one as parties squabbled until the last minute over Cabinet seats in backroom deals.

After 76 days under lockdown, China's Wuhan city is gradually returning to a new normal. But while Covid-19 infection rates have fallen, social distancing measures are still in place and the economic repercussions for the industrial hub are also becoming clear.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced they had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite on Wednesday, at a time of fresh tensions with US forces in the Gulf.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill. 

The United States tweeted its support for Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations Friday, provoking a sharp response from China expressing “strong indignation and firm opposition.”

Robots delivering meals, ghostly figures in hazmat suits and cameras pointed at front doors: China's methods to enforce coronavirus quarantines have looked like a sci-fi dystopia for legions of people.

Eleven people were killed and hundreds hospitalised after a pre-dawn gas leak at a chemical plant in eastern India on Thursday that left unconscious victims lying in the streets, authorities said.

India will within days roll out a version of its coronavirus contact-tracing application that can run on mobile carrier Reliance Jio's cheap phones, as it looks to increase the reach of the system, a senior government official said on Thursday.

China's new prototype spacecraft "successfully landed" on Friday, marking an important step in its ambitions to run a permanent space station and send astronauts to the moon.

Indian police have filed a complaint against an LG Chem subsidiary over a toxic gas leak at its chemical plant in the south of the country that killed 11 people and sickened almost a thousand more.

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

"The customer doesn't expect everything will go right all the time; the big test is what you do when things go wrong."

"You have to track every single thing you eat if you want to keep posting big numbers on the scale each week."

"Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy."

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"Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level."

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."

It has been about a month since Mom entered into Hospice care. The past year or so has been a real struggle for me with her declining health as well as Dad's struggles with advancing Parkinsons. This is my second time dealing with needing Hospice care for a loved one. The last time it was very upsetting and I'm still haunted by the experience, so it was with great reluctance that I agreed to engage Hospice care for Mom. Thankfully, my experience wi...

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While the manuscript for The Isle of Donne has been difficult (mostly because now I'm at the point where I have to start bringing stuff together to a set point rather than let them meander off wherever), I'm not completely without something to share. This particular piece is a short story that kinda came about because of a character I liked writing about when the opportunity arose... but there really weren't any real opportunities to do so.  I...

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Chapter 12: "Broken" comic 1573
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Chapter 12: "Broken" comic 1574
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Farro, an ancient grain similar to barley, adds texture and creaminess to this vegan version of Tuscan white bean soup with carrots and kale. Use Alubia Blanca or any small white beans, such as navy beans. I’ve had a bag of Alubia Blanca white beans from Rancho Gordo sitting on my “bean shelf” for longer...

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The post Vegan Tuscan White Bean Soup in the Instant Pot appeared first on FatFree Vegan Kitchen.

We’ve reached the “Take Arty Black and White Pictures of a Telephone Pole” stage of the quarantine, so, you know, well done us. * And just how was this week in quarantine, Scalzi? I mean, oddly enough, it was… fine? Not terrible, not great, and I’ve gotten to the point, I guess, where it doesn’t […]

I noted here, I believe, that recently my dSLR, my Nikon d750, basically crapped itself, most likely from a faulty mirror mechanism. This wasn’t entirely a surprise to me — it had developed a hiccup several months back where the first photo after being turned on was a black rectangle as the camera remembered it […]