De facto leader since the 1994 genocide and running for a fourth term as president in elections Monday, the iron-fisted Kagame has established a sphere of influence far outweighing Rwanda's size to develop the country and entrench his own power base.

Unlike many other African nations, "Rwanda is pursuing a real foreign policy strategy", says Paul-Simon Handy, East Africa director at the Institute for Security Studies.

This strategy is similar to "smart power", says Handy, combining hard power -- the use of military and economic means for influence -- and soft power.

- Murky role -

The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) is one of the pillars of this policy, though its role is contradictory.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has for years accused its neighbour of fomenting instability in the east and supporting armed groups, including the Tutsi-led M23, deploying troops and allegedly seeking to plunder its mineral wealth.

A recent UN experts report said 3,000-4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside M23 rebels and that Kigali had "de facto control" of the group's operations.

Questioned repeatedly on the issue, Kagame has not explicitly denied the presence of Rwandan forces in DRC, instead pointing to the "persecution" of the Tutsi minority and the risk of instability on Rwanda's border.

"By nature, Rwanda's security posture has always been defensive, not offensive. We only act when trouble is brought on us," he said this month.

Its murky role in the DRC has however cost Kigali some financial support from the West, which since 2012-2013 has cut development aid and investment.

- 'Africa's policeman' -

At the same time, Kagame has established his army as the "policeman of Africa".

Since 2024, the RDF has taken part in numerous UN peacekeeping missions. With 5,894 men deployed as of March 31, Rwanda is the fourth largest contributor, with forces in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

"By participating in and leading peacekeeping and unilateral military missions, Rwanda has significantly enhanced its global image and strategic relevance beyond its historical association with the 1994 genocide," said Federico Donelli, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Trieste.

It also reaps a financial windfall. The UN pays contributors $1,428 per soldier per month, meaning Kigali receives more than $100 million a year.

The RDF has also been deployed under bilateral deals with, for example, CAR and Mozambique.

These military commitments are often accompanied by economic agreements, offering development opportunities for Rwanda, which does not have its own natural resources or industrial base, and is reliant on international funding.

In CAR, Rwandans enjoy privileged investment access to sectors such as mining, agriculture and construction, often led by Crystal Ventures, an investment firm owned by Kagame's ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

- Diplomatic lever -

These deals also represent a valuable diplomatic lever to ward off sanction threats over the DRC or its dismal human rights record.

"Rwanda has never hidden its threat to withdraw from peacekeeping operations if it were to be sanctioned," said Handy.

"It has proven its effectiveness: DRC efforts to have Rwanda sanctioned for its support for the M23 were unsuccessful."

Donelli said Kagame has an ability to read global dynamics.

"He knows that Western actors are increasingly reluctant to get involved in African crises," he added.

"In an increasingly chaotic regional context, he is using Rwanda's role as a reliable partner in crises to reduce Western criticism and divert attention from domestic issues such as the lack of democratic development, centralisation of power and human rights concerns."

- 'Smart power' -

Kagame is accused of authoritarian rule, muzzling the media and political opposition, while according to the World Bank almost half the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.

But he has sought to burnish Rwanda's image abroad -- selling itself as an African flagship for new technology, a hub for conferences and major sporting events, and a leading ecotourism destination.

Sponsorship deals have seen "Visit Rwanda" emblazoned on the shirts of European football teams Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich.

Rwanda has also boosted its presence in global organisations.

In 2009, it became a member of the Commonwealth and hosted its 2022 summit, while a former minister is head the International Organisation of La Francophonie (French-speaking union), another serves as deputy chair of the African Union Commission.

Handy says Rwanda's "smart power" was illustrated by the controversial deal to take in asylum seekers deported from Britain.

"The interest was essentially financial but it was also the projection of an image of a peaceful country where it would be good for refugees to live."

Widely condemned by rights groups and blocked by UK courts, the scheme has now been scrapped by Britain's new government -- but Rwanda insists it is not obliged to return the 240 million pound ($311 million) payment already sent by London.

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Hidalgo is the latest VIP to cleave through the river's murky waters, after Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera

Despite a major clean-up, many Parisians still recoil at the idea of swimming in a river that regularly tests for high levels of bacteria caused by faecal matter.

But up until 1923, when it was banned due to pollution and the danger from passing river barges, it was a popular pastime.

Here is a brief history of Seine swimming:

- 17th-century skinny dipping -

In the 17th century, before the revolution that toppled France's monarchy, bathing in the Seine was a fashionable pastime -- and one that was often conducted naked.

By the end of the century, skinny dipping had been outlawed, but Seine swimming remained popular, with floating pools installed along the banks.

The most famous of these was the Deligny pool, erected in 1801 on a dozen barges and named after one of the first lifeguards to give bankside swimming lessons.

There were some twenty such spots at various points along the river by the end of the 19th century, before they all fell into disuse with the arrival of land-based pools.

- 1923: banned -

Some diehards continued to slip on their speedos until the practice was officially banned in 1923.

Even today, a brigade patrols the waters for any divers.

At times exceptions have been made for Seine swimming, including during heatwaves in the 1940s and official races.

- 1988: Mayor's promise -

When 5,000 pike were released into the river in 1988, Jacques Chirac as mayor of Paris declared that in five years, Parisians would again be able to swim in the Seine.

"I'll come with towels and antibiotics," quipped the environment minister at the time, Brice Lalonde.

Chirac repeated his pledge two years later in an interview on French television, adding that he would personally take a public dip in 1993, though he never did before his death in 2019.

- 2024: Olympics comeback -

Current Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo revived the dream when bidding for the French capital to get the 2024 Games, promising swimming events in the Seine.

She also added another post-Games goal, to install three summer bathing areas for the general public by the summer of 2025 -- one near Notre Dame, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third at Bercy, a quieter neighbourhood in the east.

Some 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) has been invested to make the Seine and its main tributary, the Marne, swimmable, notably by improving waste water collection management.

A key feature of the project involved building a massive underground rainwater storage tank near Austerlitz train station to hold excess waste water to ensure it does not flow into the Seine.

It hasn't been all plain sailing.

Last month Hidalgo was forced to call off a swim because of high levels of fecal matter.

The swimming leg of the Olympics triathlon is set to take place in its waters on July 30-31 and August 5, followed by the open-water swimming on August 8-9.

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Hashimoto became the youngest men's all-around champion in Olympic history when he took gold aged 19 at the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Games three years ago.

He also triumphed in the horizontal bar event.

Hashimoto's success represented a changing of the guard after the long and imperious reign of Uchimura, who is widely regarded as one the sport's all-time greats.

"King Kohei", who retired in 2022, won successive all-around Olympic titles in 2012 and 2016 and was part of the Japan team that took gold at the Rio Games.

Now Hashimoto has the chance to follow in his illustrious countryman's footsteps despite struggling with a finger injury in the build-up to Paris.

"I think it's looking good, but my finger still isn't 100 percent so I can't let my guard down," Hashimoto told reporters after practising with his Japan team-mates in late June.

Hashimoto damaged a ligament in the middle finger of his right hand in May while practising for his final competition before the Games.

He has said he expects to be up to speed when the gymnastics start in Paris on July 27.

Hashimoto is the two-time all-around world champion and will start among the title favourites even if his preparations have been far from ideal.

He has the backing of Uchimura, who is also tipping Japan for the team title.

"I believe Hashimoto, who does the world's best training, is the strongest in the world," Uchimura told Japanese media.

"But the Olympics have the power to transform athletes.

"It's about whether Hashimoto can remain his overwhelmingly strong self and whether his rivals transform."

- Tokyo breakthrough -

Growing up in a family of part-time farmers in Japan's Chiba Prefecture, Hashimoto took up gymnastics at the age of six after watching his two older brothers do the same.

He competed at the world championships in Stuttgart in 2019 while still a high school student, and he had an extra year to hone his craft when the Tokyo Games were delayed by a year.

Uchimura decided not to compete in the all-around event on home soil because of wear and tear on his aging body, and Hashimoto took centre stage as the final reached its climax.

Placed third going into the last rotation, the horizontal bar, he put in a near-flawless routine, dismounting with a clap of his hands that sent a cloud of white chalk into the air.

His performance lifted him into first, giving him the title ahead of China's Xiao Ruoteng and Russia's world champion Nikita Nagornyy.

Hashimoto stayed dry-eyed on the podium afterwards, explaining that he felt "the champion must not cry but only look forward".

He has since gone from strength to strength, finishing second at the world championships later in 2021 behind China's Zhang Boheng but winning the title at the next two editions.

He still has some way to go before he can catch Uchimura, who won six all-around world titles.

He can match his Olympic tally if he wins gold in Paris, but the 22-year-old has other things on his mind than just winning medals.

"I want to work hard so that when people ask which sports have made a splash this year, the answer they give is gymnastics," he told reporters.

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Six Afghans -- including three women who are not acknowledged by the Taliban government -- will compete at the Paris Olympics in cycling, athletics, swimming and judo.

Faizad is the only member of the team still living in Afghanistan and follows a rigorous regime whilst competing with the challenges of living in a country mired in poverty, recovering from war and governed by the Taliban.

"Physical fatigue subsides after 10 to 20 minutes, but mental and psychological exhaustion is much harder to overcome," the 22 year-old, who works odd jobs to fund four hours of training in the Japanese martial art each day, told AFP.

"Judo means a lot to me," he said while other fighters sparred at the run-down gym of the Afghanistan Judo Federation in Kabul.

"One of my biggest dreams has been to someday participate in the Olympic Games."

- 'Gender apartheid' -

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Afghanistan from the Games in 1999, during the first period of Taliban rule from 1996 and 2001 when women were barred from sport.

The country was reinstated after the Taliban were ousted by the post-9/11 invasion, but the Paris Games mark the first summer Olympics since they took back power in 2021.

Taliban government curbs have once again squeezed women out of sport, as well as secondary schools and universities, in strictures the United Nations describes as "gender apartheid".

But this time the IOC has invited a squad without consulting Taliban officials -- who have not been invited to attend -- instead working with the largely exiled national Olympic committee.

The team of three women and three men were chosen under a system ensuring all 206 nations are represented at the Games, in cases where athletes wouldn't otherwise qualify.

Faizad won his spot in a Kabul tournament of more than a hundred competitors.

"I will give my hundred percent to get the gold medal for my country," said Faizad, who has practised judo for 14 years and is 446th in the men's world rankings.

The Taliban government have campaigned to be the country's only representatives at diplomatic forums but in sport have been less dogmatic, praising teams that play under the old flag.

"We don't want to mix politics and sports," Atal Mashwani, the spokesman of the Taliban government's sports directorate, told AFP.

However he insisted that "only three athletes are representing Afghanistan" at the Olympics, refusing to acknowledge the women competitors.

He added that with time "the flag issues will be solved".

"The flag of the ruling government will be waved in international sports events," he said.

- 'We give our best' -

Afghanistan first appeared at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and have won only two bronze medals, both in Taekwondo.

"In Afghanistan, there aren't many opportunities for sport," said Faizad.

"We don't have standard clubs to train properly, but we do our best."

The word judo means "gentle way" in Japan and Faizad tries to cultivate the zen-like calmness his sport requires of champions by putting all other things out of his mind.

"An athlete should be able to focus only on sport," he said.

The young fighter is trained by his uncle, 36 year-old Ajmal Faizada -- who competed in the 2012 London Olympics and will accompany him to Paris.

"We have both given our best in training," said Ajmal.

"We are really aiming to return with the best achievement possible."

The Paris Olympics will be Faizad's first international competition -- but with the Taliban government unrecognised by any other nation, the trip is difficult and complicated.

Most embassies in Afghanistan were evacuated during the Taliban takeover and Faizad must travel to neighbouring Iran to apply for his visa.

"Whether I win or not, and if I return to Afghanistan empty-handed, I will train to be ready for the 2028 Olympic Games," he promised.

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At her home in rural South Korea, Seen Aromi practices yoga, sleeps in as long as she wants and encourages her more than 200,000 YouTube followers to not feel afraid, ashamed or guilty about being single.

"Not getting married is my greatest achievement," 37-year-old Seen told AFP, saying that she had never seen becoming a "good" wife or mother as the ultimate purpose of her life.

"They say it's a 'disaster'" that women are not having children in South Korea, she said, referring to official concern over the looming demographic crisis in the country, which has the world's lowest birth rate and a rapidly ageing population.

"But when I think about the potential downsides of not having children, (for me) there is nothing," she added.

Seen wrote about the joy she found in opting out of society's expectations and embracing solo living, and her book -- "I Can't Help but Live Well On My Own" -- has become a surprise hit.

It briefly topped a major bestseller chart in South Korea, with an enthusiastic response not only from other single women in their 30s, but also from an older generation, including people who had been widowed or divorced.

She enthused in the book about having "the freedom to be as lazy as I want" and not being criticised for it.

"While some people might marry because they dislike being alone, others choose not to meet anyone simply because they enjoy lying around," she wrote.

- Traditional trappings -

Experts have suggested that many young Koreans opt out of marriage and child-rearing at least in part for economic reasons, pointing to stagnant growth, sky-high home prices in the capital Seoul, and intense competition for well-paying jobs.

Others say broader cultural issues are at play. The country remains socially conservative, single parenthood is frowned upon, same-sex marriage is not recognised, and married women often end up leaving the workforce -- data shows they spend 3.5 times more hours a day on household chores and childcare than male spouses.

"Traditionally defined gender role expectations in the family domain as well as tension between genders are definitely related to the current low birthrate," Hyeyoung Woo, a sociology professor at Portland State University, told AFP.

For Seen, letting go of the traditional South Korean trappings of success -- a Seoul apartment, a high-paying job, a loving spouse -- has allowed her to find genuine happiness.

"I've never worked for a big conglomerate, do not live in the city, and never been married," she told AFP.

Her life in Seoul was miserable, Seen told AFP, as she had to suffer through an exhausting commute and a stressful, abusive workplace.

After living overseas for years, working random jobs from hotel housekeeper to packing meat in a chicken factory, and posting videos about her life online, she returned to South Korea and settled in a rural town.

She renovated an old family house that used to belong to her late grandfather and her YouTube channel grew in popularity, eventually picking up more than 200,000 subscribers for her posts, which deal with everything from living alone to travelling, fitness and yoga.

A single YouTube video now earns her five times more than she used to get monthly as a salaried worker in Seoul, and she can "live a much more autonomous life -- which is extremely satisfying," she said.

- Backlash -

Her social media posts about her joyful single life have attracted backlash online, with critics claiming that in reality, Seen must be lonely, or calling her "selfish" for not getting married.

"Married people often post photos of their children and share happy images of their married life, and no one really criticises that," Seen said.

"But when I said I was happy, (some people) strongly denied it. They seemed to think 'there's no way that could be true'."

Seen said she had been in several fulfilling relationships, but her autonomy and adventurous lifestyle are her top priority, over starting a family.

The fact that her book has become a runaway success proves that you "can still be the best at something even though you live a non-mainstream life," she said.

Most couples who have children do it because it will make them happy, not out of concern for humanity's future -- and people who live alone have also made choices aimed at happiness, which should be respected, she said.

Seen told AFP that she was proud of her contributions to the world.

While others were having children, she said, "I gave birth to two YouTube channels and a book".

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Nearly 273,000 people have applied to take part in the event which will see a 216-metre-long red-and-white chequered rug cover the picnic ground and feature free packed meals from organisers' eight partner restaurants.

Around 4,000 people have been selected to participate in the "le grand pique-nique", with each guest invited to bring up to six additional people and choose one of two sittings, at noon or 2:00 pm.

The "world's largest tablecloth", made from 25 pieces of recycled fibre, will be assembled on site by 150 people, the organisers said.

The aim of the event was to show that the Champs-Elysees, famous for its expensive boutiques and restaurants, was not only good for shopping, said Marc-Antoine Jamet, president of the organiser, the Champs-Elysees Committee.

"It's a way of telling Parisians: 'Come back to the Champs-Elysees'", he said.

In 2023, the association transformed the avenue into an open-air mass "dictation" spellathon, pitting thousands of France's brainiest bookworms against one another.

With 1,779 desks laid out on the boulevard, organisers had sought to break the world record for a dictation spelling competition.

A top tourist attraction, the avenue has been gradually abandoned by locals in recent years.

The historic UGC Normandie cinema, which opened in 1937, is set to close in June due to decline in business.

On Monday, the Committee was due to present a 1,800-page study of possible ways to reinvent the Champs-Elysees.

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Conan, a six-month-old stray, joined the security team of the Worldwide Corporate Center in the capital Manila several months ago.

He is one of the lucky moggies unofficially adopted by security guards across the city, where thousands of cats live on the street.

While the cats lack the security skills of dogs -- and have a tendency to sleep on the job -- their cuteness and company have endeared them to bored security guards working 12-hour shifts.

Conan was rescued when he was a few weeks old by a housekeeper who found him wailing in the building's car park.

He accidentally landed the role of security cat after his predecessor, Mingming, died -- reportedly from gum disease, not in the line of duty.

Grieving guards wanting another furry friend to liven up their shifts decided to appoint Conan as Mingming's replacement.

"If Conan isn't around then I'm not motivated," security guard Aljon Aquino, 30, told AFP.

"He takes away my stress."

Photos of Conan wearing his vest emblazoned with "security" and lying on a desk next to a life-size cardboard picture of Mingming have been shared thousands of times on Facebook.

He is among more than a dozen strays living in the commercial and corporate building, where they are allowed to roam.

Employees pitch in to buy food for them.

Despite living his best life, Conan shows little interest in helping his human colleagues perform their security duties, such as searching bags of shoppers and workers as they enter the building.

Instead, he prefers to sleep, laze in front of the nearby Starbucks or chase balls across the tiled floor, much to the delight of passers-by.

"Sometimes people will just randomly carry him because he's really friendly," said Aquino, playfully poking Conan with his baton.

"He enjoys the work."

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The 15-second meow-vie featuring an orange tabby named Taters is the first to be streamed from deep space, and demonstrates it's possible to transmit the higher-data-rate communications needed to support complex missions such as sending humans to Mars.

The video was beamed to Earth using a laser transceiver on the Psyche probe, which is journeying to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to explore a mysterious metal-rich object. When it sent the video, the spaceship was 80 times the distance between the Earth and Moon.

The encoded near-infrared signal was received by the Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, and from there sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

"One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles. Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data," said Bill Klipstein, the tech demo's project manager at JPL.

"But to make this significant event more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demo as part of the Psyche mission."

Space missions have traditionally relied on radio waves to send and receive data, but working with lasers can increase the data rate by 10 to 100 times.

- Giant pounce for catkind -

The ultra-HD video took 101 seconds to send to Earth at the system's maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second -- faster than most home broadband connections.

"In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space," said Ryan Rogalin, the project's receiver electronics lead at JPL.

So why a cat video? First, there's the historic connection, said JPL. When American interest in television began growing in the 1920s, a statue of Felix the Cat was broadcast to serve as a test image.

And while cats may not claim the title as man's best friend, few can dispute their number-one position when it comes to internet videos and meme culture.

Uploaded before launch, the clip shows Tabby, the pet of a JPL employee, chasing a laser light on a couch, with test graphics overlayed. These include Psyche's orbital path and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate.

While laser transmission has been demonstrated in low Earth orbit and as far away as the Moon, the Psyche mission is the first time it's been deployed in deep space. Aiming a laser beam from millions of miles away requires extremely precise "pointing," a major technical hurdle engineering teams had to solve.

The technology demonstration even needs to compensate for the fact that in the time it takes for light to travel from the spacecraft to Earth, both the probe and the planet will have moved -- so the uplink and downlink lasers need to adjust for the change accordingly.

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Skocak heads Croatia's first ever independent Gen Z electoral list of 12 candidates all aged between 19 and 30.

"This is an experiment to see if it's even possible, no one has ever done it," Skocak told AFP.

The 26-year-old's expertise goes way beyond the 1940s fashion she regales her quarter of a million followers with on TikTok and Instagram.

A journalism and political science graduate with a masters in European politics, she began as an intern in the European Parliament in 2022.

She now works promoting Europe's Horizon research programme for scientists trying to make major breakthroughs.

Skocak announced her candidacy on social media and her followers helped her quickly gather the 5,000 signatures needed to register.

"We didn't use traditional methods," she told AFP.

"Instead, we went to cafes and bars and collected signatures there. People came to have a drink and to give us a signature," the influencer said.

Eventually her Gen Z list gathered 8,500 signatures, which was their first major success.

"Young people today prefer their own channels to traditional party structures," Skocak added.

"We need to create different platforms and methods to engage them."

As you would expect, Skocak's campaign leverages her social media presence, engaging with her audience through pop quizzes, but she also gets out to meet people at flea markets and direct communication in bars frequented by youngsters.

She is not the first to try their new campaigning methods, said Marijana Grbesa, a political science professor at Zagreb University.

"There will be more of this since the key message from young people is, 'We don't want you talking about us, we want you to talk to us,'" she told AFP.

For Grbesa the perception that young people are not interested in politics is only partially true.

"They are not interested in politics in a way that politicians talk to them," she insisted.

- Youth view lacking -

Skocak -- who is polling in single digits -- said her campaign is as much about education as getting elected.

Her videos try to explain the electoral process and urge her followers to participate in shaping the political landscape.

In the comments many of her followers thank her for finally explaining how it all works and say that thanks to her they will definitely vote for the first time.

"Skocak speaks the language young people speak. It is a big plus," said Grbesa.

"She tries to mobilise young people," she added.

Young Croatians have one of the lowest levels of understanding of the EU, according to surveys.

Seventy-one percent said they understand little or nothing about the EU while the European average is 55 percent, according to a Flash Eurobarometer survey for the European Parliament in 2021.

Skocak believes that young people are interested in the European elections but are frustrated with traditional politics and need some encouragement.

Currently, only three MEPs are under 30 and Skocak sees a need for change.

"Young people bring a different viewpoint in policy-making. This is definitely lacking," she argued.

Her Gen Z list of seven women and five men is the youngest in the European elections.

Their manifesto focuses on youth involvement in politics, internet safety, sustainable policies and women's rights.

Determined to show that young people, especially young women, have a place in politics, Nina's independent list aims at countering the right-wing shift in Croatia's politics.

They advocate lowering the voting age to 16 years and having youth quotas in the European elections.

Croatia -- which joined the EU in 2012 -- will elect 12 MEPs on Sunday.

Skocak stressed that social media can mobilise people in a day.

"Maybe only a hundred people will turn out to vote, or maybe a hundred thousand will."

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