Riyadh (AFP) – Stranded abroad by almost a year of war, Saudi Arabia’s swelling Sudanese community are drawn to Riyadh’s “Little Khartoum” where they can eat, pray and console each other about the conflict ravaging their country.
Tokyo (AFP) – Tourists and residents packed Tokyo’s top cherry blossom spots on Thursday to enjoy full bloom which has arrived in the Japanese capital later than usual due to cold weather.
Hualien (Taiwan) (AFP) – Emergency workers use heavy machinery in the eastern Taiwan city of Hualien after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the area on Wednesday morning.
Gandanchusma (Afghanistan) (AFP) – Two and a half years after the return of the Taliban to power, malnutrition is rife in Afghanistan, a country beset by economic, humanitarian and climatic crises.
Kigali (AFP) – As Rwanda approaches the 30th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, a group of young Rwandan artists is helping to preserve the memory of the 800,000 victims by creating portraits of some of them copied from old and often damaged photographs.
Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – As NATO foreign ministers debate the creation of a 100-billion-euro fund for Ukraine, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg urges member states to guarantee long-term arms supplies for Kyiv’s outgunned forces in its fight against Russia’s invasion.
Vantaa (Finland) (AFP) – Finnish people, including students of Viertola school, lay candles and flowers to pay respect to the victims of yesterday’s school shooting.
Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis expresses his “deep sorrow” for the deaths of seven charity workers killed by an Israeli strike while they were delivering aid in Gaza. Addressing the crowd in St Peter’s Square as he delivers his weekly audience, the 87-year-old pontiff also renews his appeal for access to humanitarian aid for the “exhausted and suffering civilian population” of Gaza, and for the hostages taken by Hamas to be released.
London (AFP) – While it may look like any other restaurant on the outside, London’s Yum Bug, as the name suggests, offers a rather unusual culinary experience for the British capital — it claims to be “the world’s first bug-based small plates restaurant.” The Yum Bug company, which makes edible insect products, opened its permanent eatery in February with the goal of shifting perceptions of eating insects.
Cañón del Micay (Colombia) (AFP) – Coca plantations blanket the mountains along the narrow Micay canyon, the heartland of Colombia’s holdout guerrillas who rule their fiefdom like a mini state. In makeshift laboratories, farmers openly mix coca leaf with gasoline to extract a paste used to make the pure cocaine that is one of Colombia’s top exports. Micay canyon is a major source of tension in negotiations between the government and the Central General Staff (EMC) rebels who broke away from the FARC when it signed a 2016 peace deal.
