Moscow (AFP) – Voters across Russia go to the polls as the country’s three-day presidential election gets underway, with the vote set to hand Vladimir Putin another six-year term. Victory will allow the former KGB agent to stay in the Kremlin until at least 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century and eclipsing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Hwange (Zimbabwe) (AFP) – Running into elephants or a pack of hyenas on the way to school is not an unusual experience for kids living near a nature reserve in northwest Zimbabwe. To reduce the risk of being attacked by wild animals, dozens of schoolchildren have been given bicycles to reduce the time they spend on foot during their journeys to and from class.
Beijing (AFP) – A spat has erupted between the US and China after the American House of Representatives passed a bill forcing the video-sharing app TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent company or be banned in the United States. TikTok has soared in popularity worldwide, but its ownership by Chinese technology giant ByteDance — and alleged subservience to Beijing’s ruling Communist Party — has fuelled national security concerns in Western capitals.
Lagos (AFP) – Thousands of people living in Lagos’ Jakande district are seeing their homes destroyed as part of a major eviction operation launched by local authorities in order to make way for a new highway.
Lagos (AFP) – Thousands of people living in Lagos’ Jakande district are seeing their homes destroyed as part of a major eviction operation launched by local authorities in order to make way for a new highway.
Jupiter (United States) (AFP) – Headlines have dubbed Florida the world’s most likely place to be bitten by a shark. They’re right, but shark bites are exceedingly rare — a fact scientists in the US state wish more people knew, especially amid declining shark populations desperately in need of conservation.
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Russia) (AFP) – Voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, regional centre of the eastern Russian island of Sakhalin, as the three-day presidential election kicks off.
Moscow (AFP) – Vladimir Putin urges Russians to go out and vote in the face of a “difficult period”, hours before polls open in a presidential election set to extend his hardline rule. Victory in the March 15-17 contest will allow the former KGB agent to stay in the Kremlin until at least 2030, longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century and eclipsing communist leader Joseph Stalin.
Beit Lahia (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinians rush to collect aid airdropped by a plane in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, amid a gruelling humanitarian crisis that has pushed much of the strip to the brink of starvation. Five months of war sparked by the militant group Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel have left the territory of 2.4 million people on the brink of famine.
Bamiyan (Afghanistan) (AFP) – From the edge of a slope in the province of Bamiyan, rivals cheer each other on as they take turns to race down the mountainside, united in keeping skiing alive in Afghanistan. Despite the loss of sponsors and prominent skiers who left the country after the Taliban takeover in 2021, as well as a ban on women taking part, a thriving cohort of Afghans eager to keep developing the sport remains.
