"All of a sudden I’ve been given this luxurious gift of freedom: freedom to ignore SMS’s completely, to not answer emails upon reception, and voicemail? "Come on. I have Free. Of course I didn’t get your message". By John von Sothen, an American in Paris, stand-up author, comedian and columnist.

Members of US Congress normally have to disclose where they travel overseas, whom they visit and how much the trip cost — but not under a little-known State Department programme that keeps those details and others a secret, reports ProPublica's Justin Elliott.

In a series of translations into English of French media coverage of the French presidential elections, the result of a cooperation project between Mediapart and Lille University masters degree students in translation, this report examines why a significant number of Green party supporters are planning to cast their vote not for their own candidate, Eva Joly, but for radical-left Front de Gauche firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

In a series of reports on the French presidential elections, a group of Lille University masters degree students in English-French translation have selected and translated into English a wide range of profiles and interviews of candidates published in the French media. Their English versions of the articles, complete with glossaries and information notes, provide a rich insight into the campaign, the candidates and the manner in which the elections are reported in France.

"The criminal and chaotic situation in Mali, today, is a direct result of NATO’s intervention in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi," writes Manthia Diawara, director of Institute of African American Affairs, (IAAA), at New York University.

An American living in Paris, stand-up author, comedian and columnist, John von Sothen dresses the sports cards of two political boxers, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama, before their respective election campaign fights.

Earlier this month, California-based non-profit organisation Invisible Children released a 30-minute video, ‘Kony 2012’, about Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda and which highlighted the plight of the child soldiers who serve it. It has become a viral sensation, now viewed more than 80 million times on YouTube. American novelist and writer Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-born specialist on African affairs, and notably on the war in northern Uganda, explains here why he was not impressed.

The French presidential election signals a turning point in the debate about Europe: François Hollande's victory would open the field for fiscal politics that are not dependent on the squeeze of austerity measures, argues Niels Annen, a member of the German Social Democratic executive council.

While Turkey' aims to become the 10th largest economy in the world by 2023, the country fell to 148th rank in the World Press Freedom Index and has made no significant human rights reform since 2005.

While Italy has been humiliated and faces economic collapse, largely due to Berlusconi and the failure of Italians to rid themselves of him earlier, one should remember that it is also the land of renaissance, writes Alexander Görlach, editor of German online magazine The European.