AFP Video

Beirut (AFP) – Lebanese protesters spray paint slogans that read “your day will come very soon” outside Lebanon’s Central Bank in Beirut, where a small group of depositors gather to demand access to their blocked savings. Lebanon is in the midst of a crippling economic crisis that the World Bank has dubbed as one of the worst in modern history. Depositors have been locked out of their savings by cash-strapped banks for nearly four years, and the Lebanese currency has lost more than 90% of its value against the US dollar.

Umm ‘Amūd (Syria) (AFP) – Traditional mud-brick houses that the people of northern Syria have built for thousands of years risk disappearing, as 12 years of war have emptied villages and left the buildings crumbling. “Our village once had 3,000 to 3,500 residents and some 200 mud houses,” says Mahmud al-Mheilej, standing beside deserted homes with weeds growing from the roofs.

La Orilla del Agua (Mexico) (AFP) – Digging under abandoned houses in Mexico’s Jalisco state, Jose Servin has been searching for his son’s remains since 2018. He is just one parent to have lost a child to the country’s powerful drug cartels, and for whom old wounds have been reopened by the recent abduction of five young friends in the Jalisco city of Lagos de Moreno. Aged between 19 and 22, they are believed to have been tortured and killed by cartel members in a state that has registered 15,000 missing persons since 1962, the highest in Mexico.

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – With their prosthetic limbs on the pitchside, a group of wounded Ukrainian servicemen play football as a way of moving forward and adapting to their life-changing injuries. “I knew there was a risk” says Oleksandr, who lost his leg to a Russian shell near Kharkiv. “It’s not easy to withstand this” says another player, Oleg, who has seen others break down after suffering serious injuries on the conflict’s frontlines.

Beijing (AFP) – A Chinese delegation will visit North Korea will demonstrate “the deep friendship” between the two countries, says Mao Ning, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson. The delegation, described as “high level” will visit North Korea this week and attend celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the country’s foundation.

Mount Fuji (Japan) (AFP) – With millions of visitors every year along with the buses, supply trucks, noodle shops and fridge magnets, Mount Fuji is no longer the peaceful, scenic pilgrimage site it once was. Now Japanese authorities have had enough, saying that the number of hikers trekking up the world-famous volcano — night and day — are so numerous that it’s dangerous and an ecological embarrassment. Authorities announced in August that they would impose crowd control measures for the first time if paths got too busy.

Brussels (AFP) – Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary gets a rude welcome in Brussels, as two environmental activists hit him in the face with cream pies, shouting “welcome in Belgium” and “stop the pollution”. O’Leary was holding a one-man protest outside the European Commission against repeated air traffic controllers strikes in the EU.

Tokyo (AFP) – The president of Japan’s biggest talent agency acknowledges sexual abuse committed by the company’s late founder and apologises to the victims. “I apologise from the bottom of my heart” says Julie Fujishima, the niece of Johnny and Associates founder Johnny Kitagawa, who also announces that she is stepping down as the agency’s president. Allegations of abuse by Kitagawa, targeting aspiring young stars, surfaced in 1999, but it wasn’t until early this year that an in-depth probe was launched. The media mogul died in 2019 at the age of 87.

State of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) (AFP) – A devastating cyclone has left at least 36 people dead in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, prompting local authorities to declare a state of emergency. Thousands are still in need of rescue after torrential rains and flooding submerged entire neighborhoods. This is the latest in a series of extreme weather events to hit the South American country. In June, 13 people died and thousands were forced to leave their homes when another cyclone hit the same state.

Mexico City (AFP) – Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion across the Latin American country. In the Catholic-majority country, the reforms go in the opposite direction to the United States, where a Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion nationwide last year. the struggle for abortion rights in Mexico