AFP Video

Beijing (AFP) – China warns Washington and Seoul against “provoking confrontation” with North Korea on Thursday, after President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart said Pyongyang would face the “end” of its leadership if it uses its nuclear arsenal. “All parties should face up to the crux of the (Korean) peninsula issue and play a constructive role in promoting a peaceful settlement of the issue,” says foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.

Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis hosts Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in a private audience in the Vatican on Thursday morning. The two exchange gifts and Shmyhal shows the Pope a book containing images of the war in Ukraine.

New York (AFP) – Actors, athletes and activists walk the Time100 red carpet in New York, before a ceremony awarding Time’s 100 Most Influential People of the year. Each year, the news magazine selects and honors emerging leaders in their fields, from a large range of industries.

A Chinese coast guard ship cut off a Philippine patrol vessel carrying journalists in the disputed South China Sea, causing a near-collision, an AFP team on board another boat saw. The near-miss off the Spratly Islands on Sunday was the latest in a steady string of incidents between China and the Philippines in the contested waterway. AFP was one of several media outlets invited to join two Philippine Coast Guard boats on a 1,670-kilometre (1,040-mile) patrol of the South China Sea, visiting a dozen islands and reefs. The BRP Malapascua and BRP Malabrigo were shadowed by Chinese navy and coast guard ships, and ordered to leave the waters several times during the six-day journey.

Surfers brave the ‘Pororoca’, one of the world’s most feared waves in the river Mearim in the Brazilian Amazon. Pororoca, which means ‘great roar’ in the indigenous Tupi Guarani language, is a phenomenon that occurs twice a year, when the ocean waters of the Atlantic meet the currents of the Amazonian rivers at high tide and push them in opposite directions. 

Brasília (AFP) – Hundreds of Indigenous groups from all over Brazil camp in Brasilia for the 19th “Terra Livre” gathering, asking Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government to create new reserves and protect ancestral resources.

Yangon (AFP) – Shwe Lei and her team wrestle writhing pythons into old rice sacks and load them into a van. It’s just another day in the life of Myanmar’s premier snake removal squad, prising pythons and cajoling cobras from dangerous entanglements with the human world before returning them to their natural habitat.

Dehra (India) (AFP) – Exhausted, elated and cradling her newborn daughter in a rundown government hospital, young mother Manu Bala had just done her part to help make India the world’s most populous nation. The UN announced that India would this week eclipse China with more people than any other country.

Moscow (AFP) – Unwilling to announce a second mobilisation drive, Russia has instead launched the biggest PR campaign for the army since President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year. 

Moscow (AFP) – The Russian incarnation of KFC opens its first restaurant in Moscow after the American fast food chain exited the country over the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine. The new owners of the US giant’s former restaurants across Russia are resuscitating Rostic’s, a brand that appeared in the tumultuous early years of post-Soviet Russia.