Top news and features from AFP's reporters around the world. Official account.
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For more than 30 years, plastic phones shaped like the cartoon cat Garfield have been washing up on French beaches.
The mystery is now solved: a shipping container which washed up during a storm in the 1980s was found in a hidden sea cave
📷 Fred Tanneau
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Wearing a military beret and a Polish wartime resistance armband, 94-year-old Wanda Traczyk-Stawska stunned the crowd at a pro-EU rally when she thundered "Be quiet, stupid boy! You lousy bastard" at a member of a far-right group u.afp.com/wJH2
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#BREAKING Notre-Dame's main structure is "saved and preserved" after fire, says Paris fire official
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Indonesia cracks down on a viral pirate flag that is spreading as a symbol of political protest
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Mexicans who served in US Army with the promise of becoming citizens but ended up being deported, protest on Memorial Day in Ciudad Juarez
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#UPDATE The first human trial to evaluate a candidate vaccine against the new coronavirus has begun in Seattle, US health officials said Monday, raising hopes in the global fight against the disease u.afp.com/35yV
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We are devastated to learn of the death of AFP video journalist Arman Soldin in eastern Ukraine today.
All of our thoughts go out to his family and loved ones.
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A huge cardboard skeleton sits in a street in the Tlahuac neighbourhood of Mexico City ahead of the Day of the Dead festival
📸 Pedro Pardo
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This is what it looks like when you get mobbed by celebrating Croatian players #WorldCup
📷 @YuriYurisky
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VIDEO: 🇺🇸 A cyclist who was fired from her job after raising her middle finger to US President Trump's motorcade has been elected to local office in Virginia. #JuliBriskman, whose one-handed salute was captured in an AFP photo, beat the Republican incumbent in Loudoun County
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The "blood moon" eclipse beside a statue of the ancient Greek goddess Hera in Athens
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VIDEO: 🇰🇷 Fresh from his Oscars triumph for '#Parasite', which won best picture, film director Bong Joon-ho returns to South Korea from the US
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Flags of various countries affected by the spread of #COVID19 are projected onto the statue of the Christ Redeemer atop Corcovado hill in Rio de Janeiro
📸 Florian Plancheur
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Left-wing parliamentarians dress in the colours of the rainbow as Andrzej Duda is sworn in for a second term as president at the Polish parliament in Warsaw
📸 Wojtek Radwanski
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China jails citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for 4 years for reporting on the virus in Wuhan. She has been on a hunger strike since June and is reportedly force-fed via a nasal tube.
China has punished 8 virus whistleblowers so far.
📸Her lawyer Zhang Keke talks to the press
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From dream to nightmare: Murtaza Ahmadi moved the world with his love for footballer Lionel Messi in 2016 - now the seven-year-old boy is living a nightmare as one of thousands of Afghans displaced by war
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Voicing joy and excitement from behind face masks, tens of thousands of people flee Wuhan after a 76-day travel ban is lifted on the Chinese city where the #coronavirus pandemic first emerged u.afp.com/3pqa
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After Bollywood star's suicide, a TV 'witch hunt'.
India has millions of COVID-19 cases and a border stand-off with China, but the story dominating the news is how a Bollywood actress supposedly drove her ex-boyfriend to suicide with pot and black magic
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Pakistan's former prime minister #ImranKhan accused the government on Thursday of trying to score a "technical knockout" against him, after he was granted bail on charges brought under the country's anti-terrorism act u.afp.com/wFQW
📷 @aamirqureshi14
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday blasted firms including Nestle for carrying on business as usual with Russia "even though our children are dying", in a live address to a Swiss rally
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Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa broke the world record for the highest wave ever surfed, during a session in Nazare, Portugal, according to the World Surf League
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#BREAKING EU countries will provide 'fighter jets' to Ukraine under Brussels funding: Borrell
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#UPDATE A 210,000-year-old skull has been identified as the earliest modern human remains found outside Africa, putting the clock back on mankind's arrival in Europe by more than 150,000 years, researchers said
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Jimin, a member of the K-pop supergroup BTS, has made history as the first South Korean solo artist to land the number one spot on the top US songs chart, Billboard announced Monday.
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PHOTOS: A massive crowd fills Mexico City's Zocalo square to voice opposition to electoral reforms championed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
@AFPphoto
📸 Nicolas Asfouri
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VIDEO: Hundreds of people gather outside ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan's house, supposedly to prevent police from reaching the ex-cricket star after he was reported under the anti-terrorism act for criticising a magistrate.
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.@NASA is investigating what may be the first crime in outer space, with astronaut Anne McClain accused of identity theft and improperly accessing her estranged wife's private financial records while on the ISS u.afp.com/J2ds
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VIDEO: Rare video captured by divers shows a 2.5-metre giant squid swimming in the waters off Japan's west coast. Giant squid are known to live in the waters around the country and occasionally wash ashore, but seeing them alive in the wild remains relatively rare.
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#UPDATE In a dramatic about-turn, the new US administration on Thursday thanked the World Health Organization (#WHO) for leading the global coronavirus pandemic response and vowed to remain a member state u.afp.com/Uwf7 #AnthonyFauci #Fauci
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#BREAKING Ukraine receives fighter planes, spare parts to bolster air force, Pentagon says
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VIDEO: 🇨🇳 Crowds packed out a water park over the weekend in the central Chinese city of #Wuhan, where the #coronavirus first emerged late last year, keen to party as the city edges back to normal life
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A mysterious leaden sarcophagus discovered in the bowels of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral after it was devastated by a fire will soon be opened and its secrets revealed, French archaeologists said u.afp.com/w7XQ
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North Korean state media KCNA releases photos of leader Kim Jong Un riding a white horse on Mount Paektu
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#BREAKING Smash-hit K-pop group BTS at visit to White House says they are 'devastated' by anti-Asian hate crimes
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Wuhan wave.
People watch a performance as they cool off in a swimming pool in Wuhan, China
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Rapid rescue.
@AFP photographers Oli Scarff and Peter Kohalmi capture the dramatic rescue of USA's Anita Alvarez from the bottom of the pool when she fainted during the women's solo free artistic swimming finals at the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships
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More than 100 South Korean women forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country file landmark lawsuit
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📸 A building slated for demolition that was once called a "monkey house", a clinic for sex workers hired to serve US soldiers
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Leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric has become Chile's youngest-ever president at age 35, on promises of installing a "welfare state" in one of the world's most unequal countries u.afp.com/wThD by @mikeldrums
ALT Chilean president-elect Gabriel Boric
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#BREAKING Ukrainian authorities say safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is now secured, after a fire broke out when the station came under fire from invading Russian forces.
"The director of the plant said that the nuclear safety is now guaranteed": Oleksandr Starukh
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#UPDATE Ukraine says it will hold talks with Russia at its border with Belarus -- near the Chernobyl exclusion zone -- after a phone call between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko
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Thousands in Russia protest Ukraine war, hundreds detained.
Up to 1,000 people gathered in the former imperial capital Saint Petersburg, where many were detained by masked police officers
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#BREAKING French energy giant TotalEnergies is facing legal action for 'complicity in war crimes' for allegedly helping fuel Russian planes that have bombed Ukraine, a source close to the case said
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A decade after McDonald's shut down in Iceland, thousands of online users follow the live slow decay of the last order -- a seemingly indestructible burger with fries protected in a glass case in Snotra House, a hostel in Thykkvibaer
📸 Angelika Osiewalska
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#UPDATE In a video released by the Ukrainian president's office Friday night, Zelensky says "Special attention on Kyiv –- we cannot lose the capital ... Tonight they (Russia) will attempt a storm"
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Greenpeace protesters unfold a banner reading "Resist" from a crane behind the White House
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VIDEO: Wax statue of Vladimir Putin removed from Paris museum.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine prompts director of the Grevin Museum in Paris to remove the statue.
"We have never represented dictators like Hitler in the Grevin Museum, we don't want to represent Putin today"
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#BREAKING French billionaire Pinault pledges 100 million euros towards rebuilding Notre-Dame, according to statement
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#UPDATE The United States will slash its military presence in Germany by 11,900 troops, relocating some to Italy and Belgium in a major shift of Washington's NATO assets, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced Wednesday
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Break in protocol -- Pope Francis stops the popemobile to attend to a policewoman who was thrown off her horse as he passed behind her in Iquique, Chile
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#BREAKING Germany says it will send 1,000 anti-tank weapons, 500 'Stinger' surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine
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VIDEO: Almost a year after conservationists sent out a plea to help save a species of Bolivian aquatic frog by finding a mate for Romeo, the last remaining member, his very own Juliet has been tracked down deep inside a forest
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Free the whales: Dozens of orcas and beluga whales captured for sale to oceanariums have brought Russia's murky trade into the spotlight
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#UPDATE A US journalist was shot dead and another wounded on Sunday in Irpin, a frontline northwest suburb of Kyiv, medics and witnesses told AFP
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Driven by anger at the authorities' response to massive protests - and guilt that the burden of defending democracy has fallen on the city's youth - a white collar rebellion is rippling out across Hong Kong
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#BREAKING President Trump orders suspension of all evictions, home loan foreclosures
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Disgraced former K-pop star Seungri is convicted of arranging prostitution and other charges stemming from a sex and drugs scandal and jailed for three years by a military court, reports say.
The singer from popular boyband BIGBANG was found guilty on all nine counts against him
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Police precinct set on fire on the third day of demonstrations as the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seethed over the shocking police killing of a handcuffed black man
Full story: u.afp.com/3APY
📸 Kerem Yucel
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#BREAKING Brazil's Lula slams Bolsonaro's 'imbecile' Covid policies in political comeback
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More than 380 figures from the cinema world including "Schindler's List" actor Ralph Fiennes have condemned "genocide" in Gaza in an open letter published Tuesday ahead of the Cannes Festival opening.
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ALT Ralph Fiennes
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#BREAKING Ukraine leader introduces martial law - urges Ukrainians not to 'panic', vows victory
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DNA tests show 'Cheddar Man', the first modern Briton, had dark skin and blue eyes u.afp.com/oJTq
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Russian tourists visiting Finland greeted with Ukrainian anthem
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VIDEO: The image of Murtaza Ahmadi sporting a plastic Messi jersey went viral in 2016 and later that year the Afghan boy met his idol in Qatar. In November he had to flee his home as it came under Taliban attack
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#UPDATE One million refugees have fled Ukraine in the week since Russia's invasion, UN refugee agency says.
"In just seven days we have witnessed the exodus of one million refugees from Ukraine to neighbouring countries," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi tweets
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#BREAKING 54 African countries demand Trump 'retraction, apology' over slur
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#UPDATE Russian airborne troops have landed in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army says.
"Russian airborne troops landed in Kharkiv... and attacked a local hospital. There is an ongoing fight"
📸 Kharkiv on March 1 following shelling from Russian forces
ALT The Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on March 1, 2022 following shelling from Russian forces
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#BREAKING 'Elimination' of last Ukrainian troops trapped in Mariupol would end Moscow talks: President Zelensky
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#BREAKING NATO looking to deploy 'substantially more forces' to eastern flank: Stoltenberg
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VIDEO: German Chancellor Angela #Merkel backs away from Italian PM Giuseppe #Conte and indicates for him to respect #socialdistancing as he tries to greet her at the European Summit in Brussels #EUCO
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VIDEO: A few hundred office workers in Hong Kong's business district gather during lunch time to show solidarity towards the pro-democracy movement
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"Mic Drop" debuted at number 28, driven by a particularly strong showing in downloads, on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week u.afp.com/4CLJ
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The new coronavirus may never go away and populations around the world will have to learn to live with it, the World Health Organization warned u.afp.com/3grT
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#BREAKING India accidentally fired missile into Pakistan after 'technical malfunction': defence ministry
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VIDEO: Mass celebrations in Chile as pro-change camp holds big lead in vote.
Thousands flock to Santiago's emblematic Plaza Italia as the pro-change camp holds a big lead in the historic referendum to rewrite Chile's dictatorship-era constitution, according to partial results
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Volunteers battle to remove oil from Paiva beach, Pernambuco state, Brazil.
Oil has washed up on more than 130 beaches along a 2,000km stretch of northern Brazil's Atlantic coastline. The source of the spill remains a mystery
📸 Leo Malafaia
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A woman on a bike gestures as the motorcade with US President Donald Trump departs Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia
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VIDEO: A convoy of 29 taxis and around 60 drivers arrives back in Madrid after driving to Warsaw in Poland and returning to Spain with Ukrainians displaced by the war
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#BREAKING Germany agrees plan to legalise purchase and possession of recreational cannabis: health minister
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VIDEO: Riot police arrest pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong's Central district
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Kim Jong Un rides white horse in new North Korea propaganda video
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VIDEO: 🇮🇹 Italians are beating the social isolation imposed by the country's coronavirus lock down by taking to their windows and singing in unison (🔊Turn on the sound)
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