AFP Video

Spain’s long fight to find Franco era’s ‘stolen babies’


Alicante (Spain) (AFP) – Spain’s Senate has passed a law honouring victims of the Francisco Franco era and recognising for the first time that “stolen babies” were also victims of his dictatorship. Over the course of five decades, potentially thousands of babies were taken from their mothers, who were told their child hadn’t survived.

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Russian strikes tear through residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia


Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine) (AFP) – Firefighters work amid jagged metal following the latest Russian strikes to batter the central Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. Early on Thursday 6th October, the attack ripped through high-rise residential buildings, and the region’s governor has said one person was killed and a toddler left injured.

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Thai emergency services work into night after nursery shooting


Nong Bua Lamphu (Thailand) (AFP) – Thai emergency services work into the night at a nursery in the country’s northeastern province of Nong Bua Lam Phu which, around lunchtime on Thursday, was the scene of a deadly mass shooting. In what is one of Thailand’s worst mass killings, a former police officer shot dead at least 35 people, most of them children.

©AFP

French football fans unhappy as World Cup fan zones scrapped


Marseille (AFP) – Football fans in Marseille and Paris react after a decision to scrap fan zones in French cities for the Qatar World Cup, on the basis of humanitarian and environmental reasons. In addition to Paris and Marseille, cities like Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux are among those deciding not to broadcast matches in public spaces.

©AFP

WHO confirms 10 Ugandan health workers now dead from ebola


Kampala (AFP) – The World Health Organization’s representative to Uganda, Dr. Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, confirms the death of another Ugandan health worker, bringing the total number killed by the Ebola virus in the country to 10.

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‘We must avoid penalising’ other crises, says UNHCR chief


Paris (AFP) – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, implores the international community to remember the ongoing humanitarian crises outside Ukraine. Grandi is visiting France to meet with President Emmanuel Macron and discuss the humanitarian response to various conflicts and the consequent human displacement happening around the world.

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Freed Taiwan activist recounts his time inside Chinese prison


Taipei (AFP) – Taiwan human rights activist Lee Ming-che, who spent five years inside a Chinese prison on “subverting state power”, recounts his ordeal. “My arrest in 2017 was inevitable because China wants to crack down on foreign civic societies’ contact with its domestic civic groups,” Lee explains. Lee was demanded to confess to being an agent hired by the Taiwanese government, hinting that doing so would lead to a swifter release. He said he refused to betray his country and therefore eventually admitted to the personal subversion charge.

©AFP

The censor cannot hold: the pressure of controlling China’s internet


San José (United States) (AFP) – As a teenager in rural China, Zeng Jiajun used his internet know-how to watch a banned documentary on the bloody military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. A decade later, he was part of China’s sprawling censorship machine. After graduation, he joined ByteDance, an upstart Chinese social media company that owns TikTok, and worked as part of a team that developed automated systems to filter content the company did not want on its platform.

©AFP

Large idols of Goddess Durga immersed in Ganges at end of Indian festival


Kolkata (AFP) – Women smear vermillion and dance on the streets as large idols of Goddess Durga are taken on a street procession before immersing them into the Ganges river in India’s Kolkata. Durga Puja is a 10-day festival celebrating Goddess Durga with large-size installations and idols of goddess Durga which draws to a close with the immersion of the idols.

©AFP

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