AFP Video

Beirut (AFP) – Lebanese authorities use a crane to remove sections of a concrete barrier erected by security forces in 2020 to bar access to the country’s parliament building.

Coventry (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Members of the Coventry-based arts company Imagineer, who specialise in outdoor works including the design of giant puppets, put the finishing touches to puppets and costumes which will feature in a procession during the Platinum Jubilee pageant, during a long weekend of celebrations marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne. The event in London, meant to showcase the “Queen’s Favourites”, will see a giant puppet representing Lady Godiva leading a troupe of horses, swans and boats, but also corgis, the Queen’s favourite breed of dog.

New York (AFP) – Nail salons are everywhere in New York, often several on the same street, allowing customers to get mani-pedis at very low prices. But for nail technicians that translates into a very harsh reality: low wages, unpredictable hours, exposure to harsh chemicals and no benefits. Workers – most of them immigrant women – are uniting to get a law passed in New York State’s Assembly to establish minimum standards in the industry.

Beijing (AFP) – Beijing says it is ready to defend its national interests over Taiwan, in a rebuke to President Joe Biden’s vow to protect the island from any invasion by China. “Do not stand in the way of 1.4 billion Chinese people”, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin tells reporters.

Bakhmut (Ukraine) (AFP) – After Russia’s army shelled her hometown, Maria Mayashlapak looks over her destroyed home and counts her blessings. “I was reciting my morning prayer for God to keep me from getting injured,” the 82-year-old recalls of the moments just before a missile caused her kitchen to implode.

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – A Kyiv court rules that a 21-year-old Russian soldier who killed a civilian is guilty of war crimes and sentences him to life in prison. Vadim Shishimarin, a captive Russian sergeant, has admitted to killing 62-year-old villager Oleksandr Shelipov in the first days of the Kremlin’s offensive in north-east Ukraine.

Stockholm (AFP) – Dr. Andrea Ammon, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, says that for the broader population, the likelihood of Monkeypox spread “is very low”. She however cautions that cases will probably be higher among at-risks communities, and that transmission is likely to be especially high “during sexual activities among persons with multiple sexual partners”.

Kratié (Cambodia) (AFP) – Hundreds of critically-endangered turtles take their first wild swim in Cambodia’s Mekong River, after being released from captivity by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Monks bless the baby reptiles — also known as “frog-faced turtles” — before helping conservationists and eager children send them into the Mekong’s muddy waters.

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – As Russia’s invasion drags on, more and more Ukrainians have either signed up or been called up to their army’s reserve: the territorial defence force. At a training ground in Kyiv, instructors rush to get them ready to fight as soon as possible.

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says during an address to the Davos summit that 87 people were killed in a Russian attack earlier this month on a military base in a region of northern Ukraine that was earlier reclaimed by Kyiv’s forces.