Health

Japan's new prime minister says she only gets two to four hours of sleep every night. Sanae Takaichi faces criticism for setting a bad example, as her government also mulls raising the upper limit on overtime work. Report by Mélodie Sforza, Himari Semans and Laurent Berstecher. ]

Last week, a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Libya, killing at least 42 people. The incident was the latest in a series of disasters that have killed more than a thousand people in the Mediterranean this year. Humanitarian group MSF - or Doctors Without Borders - announced this week it is restarting its search and rescue activities in the Mediterranean. Details with Rositsa Atana-Sova, the humanitarian affairs coordinator for MSF's search and rescue operations. ]

Cuts to international aid by the US and European countries could cause more than 22 million preventable deaths by 2030, including 5.4 million children under five, a new research has warned on Monday, highlighting the unprecedented global impact of simultaneous reductions in development assistance. ]

"Europe does not want to be the client" of the US or China in the field of technology, French President Emmanuel Macron has told tech and political leaders at a "digital sovereignty summit" in Berlin. During the event, biotech company Owkin unveiled a new pan-European platform to make biological data "AI-ready". CEO Thomas Clozel speaks to FRANCE 24 about how new agentic and reasoning models can help take medical research to the next level.  ]

Today marks World Toilet Day, a day that seeks to inspire actions to tackle what the UN refers to as a global sanitation crisis, with some 3.4 billion people living without safe sanitation. In China this year also marks 10 years since Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a “Chinese Toilet Revolution”, aimed at upgrading the country’s bathrooms and hygiene standards. Despite large improvements, work remains to be done. Report by FRANCE 24 correspondents in China, Jan Camenzind Broomby and Eudeline Boishult. ]

A Lancet report released last week found that since the 1990s, heat-related deaths have increased 23% to 546,000 annually as global temperatures rise. We speak with Emilia Carrera, Director of the Health Initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation, about how urban areas can mitigate the impact of global warming in cities and protect residents in urban areas. ]

Ahead of COP30, beginning November 6 in Belém, Brazil, experts say we are seeing unprecedented impacts of climate change on people's health. In light of this, some - including billionaire Bill Gates - are calling on world leaders to focus the climate talks on improving wellbeing. Gabrielle Nadler spoke to an expert to understand how the two are related, and what can be done to mitigate the impact. ]

James Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped spark a revolution in medicine, crimefighting, genealogy and ethics, has died, according to his former research lab. He was 97.  ]

As France marks 10 years since the November 13 attacks, a new study is examining how trauma is still rippling through affected families and reshaping the lives of the next generation who were children when the violent attacks tore through Paris.  ]

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, warned that "rapid and abrupt" cuts in US funding for AIDS programmes were threatening the advances made in fighting the epidemic in recent years. She expressed hope that some of the programmes that had been suspended by the Trump administration were being reinstated, but noted that "steady declines" in funding from Europe and other donors were putting fragile populations, especially "in low-income countries of Africa", at risk of "more new infections and more deaths". ]