More than 1,700 passengers and crew have been confined on a cruise ship docked in the French city of Bordeaux after a 90-year-old passenger died from a suspected case of norovirus, a highly contagious form of gastroenteritis.

In a televised announcement on May, 12, Vladimir #Putin announced the Sarmat would be ready for combat by the end of the year. This comes a few days after he said the war in #Ukraine was close to an end.

PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, May 13, 2026: A highly awaited summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping kicks off in China. But first, the British front pages discuss Prime Minister Keir Starmer's continuing struggles. Next, climate scientists are worried that El Nino will be particularly intense this year. Finally, sunburns might hold the keys to a technological revolution.

In a televised announcement on May, 12, Vladimir #Putin announced the Sarmat would be ready for combat by the end of the year. This comes a few days after he said the war in #Ukraine was close to an end.

US President Donald Trump is expected to land in China this Wednesday ahead of a summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Trump is accompanied by a large delegation of US executives and has promised to ask Xi to "open up" the country to US business. In this edition, we explore what "opening up" means in this context. Plus, FRANCE 24's Yena Lee looks into one of the key points of negotiations: China's purchases of US soybeans.

US President Donald Trump is set to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday for his highly anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a restless moment for a world worried about war, trade and artificial intelligence. While Trump likes to project a sense of strength, the visit occurs at a delicate moment for his presidency as his popularity at home has been weighed down by the US and Israel's war with Iran and rising inflation as a consequence of that conflict. FRANCE 24's International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert tells us more.

The hantavirus outbreak has now reached 11 total reported cases, 9 of which have been confirmed. In France, a woman infected in the deadly virus outbreak on a cruise ship is critically ill, a doctor at the Paris hospital caring for the sickened passenger said Tuesday. With 22 contact cases in the country overall, authorities say there is no widespread transmission of the virus at this moment.

A Dutch ornithologist may be "patient zero" in the new hantavirus outbreak – a theory currently favored by the World Health Organisation. The 70 year old was the first person to die aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius. But how and where did he come into contact with the virus?

From the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, Emmanuel Macron gave an exclusive interview to France 24, RFI, and Le Monde. It was an opportunity for the French president to take stock of his work in Africa, which began in 2017 during his first term.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a battle for his job after dozens of lawmakers from his own party called on him to step down in the wake of a resounding defeat for his center-left Labour Party in local elections last week. Those considered to harbor leadership ambitions include Health Secretary Wes Streeting, and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, who had to resign last year after acknowledging that she didn’t pay enough tax on a house purchase. Andy Burnham, the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, is widely perceived to be one of the strongest candidates.

The 79th Cannes Film Festival launched on Tuesday, marking the start of 12 days of nonstop premieres that will culminate May 23 with the centrepiece that every director is hoping to take home: the prestigious Palme d’Or. As the festivities in the south of France get underway, we take a look at how the most coveted prize at the Cannes Festival is made.

Oliver Farry is pleased to welcome Muhammad Munir, Virologist and Professor in Virology and Viral Zoonosis at Lancaster University. Munir offers a rare combination of epidemiological precision, operational insight, and public health realism as he assesses the international response to the hantavirus. Speaking at a moment of acute uncertainty, Munir frames the repatriation effort not merely as a logistical exercise, but as what he calls “a crucial juncture and a Rubicon moment”: a threshold at which scientific preparedness, political coordination, and public compliance converge to determine whether an outbreak is contained or allowed to proliferate. Throughout the conversation, Munir moves fluently between molecular virology, outbreak forensics, and environmental epidemiology. He contrasts hantavirus with COVID-19, explains why asymptomatic transmission is not the central concern here, and repeatedly shifts attention toward what he sees as the true challenge: the deceptively long incubation period and the possibility of human error during quarantine.