Ramat Gan (Israel) (AFP) – Israeli security forces disperse ultra-Orthodox demonstrators protesting army enlistment outside Tel Hashomer’s army base in Ramat Gan. The community has been historically exempt, but a June decree has annulled the understanding, as Israel continues its war in Gaza and conflict against Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran.
Cali (Colombia) (AFP) – African wild dogs walking next to cardboard tombstones or lions eating from a carved pumpkin — residents of Cali’s zoo are also marking Halloween, as the Colombian city hosts the UN summit on biodiversity.
Beijing (AFP) – China says it is “concerned” about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, after Pyongyang said it had test-fired one of its most powerful missiles to boost its nuclear deterrent.
Ranong (Thailand) (AFP) – As a long-tail boat arrives at a fishing village on the southern Thai island of Koh Chang, residents gather to sell their wares — not seafood, but plastic. The villagers, members of the semi-nomadic Moken people, are selling to Tide, a start-up attempting to create new value from old plastic collected from or near the sea. Recyclers have long scooped up some of the over six million tonnes of plastic that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates enters the ocean each year. But Tide works directly with everyone in the process, from collectors in remote Thai fishing villages to carpet manufacturers in the Netherlands.
Caracas (AFP) – The Venezuelan National Association of Journalists denounces a state of total defencelessness to carry out their work and demands guarantees for the missing journalist Nelin Escalante, detained during the post-electoral crisis, which they consider an “enforced disappearance”.
Nouakchott (AFP) – Originally from Siberia, in the far north, huskies are becoming fashionable in the Sahara region and Mauritania — thousands of kilometers away, and where temperatures regularly soar to 40 degrees Celsius.
Utiel (Spain) (AFP) – Spanish emergency services use a helicopter to rescue a person and their dog, left stranded by flooding in Spain’s eastern Valencia region. Triggered by torrential rain, the flooding has left at least 62 people dead, according to rescue services.
Gran Canaria (Spain) (AFP) – Spain’s King Felipe VI expesses his “condolences and sadness” for the loss of “so many lives” after deadly floods hit Spain, particularly in the Valencia region, where the official death toll has reached at least 72 people.
Guainía (Colombia) (AFP) – Every day, local fishermen visit Ernesto Rojas to sell him small, colorful fish plucked from rivers in the Colombian jungle that end up in aquariums around the world. The septuagenarian has dedicated half a century to the ornamental fish business, seen by critics as cruel and harmful to nature. Others recognize its benefits, including encouraging habitat conservation and offering an alternative to harmful activities like illegal logging and mining.
Sao Paulo (AFP) – A hill in Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo’s second-largest favela, showcases the work of Estevao Silva da Conceicao, who has spent four decades building a unique castle that has earned him the nickname “the Brazilian Gaudi.”
