AFP UK

Roscoff (France) (AFP) – Used fishing nets are collected in Breton ports and sent off from western France to Ukraine, where they will be used to cover roads and military infrastructure with the aim of protecting them from Russian drone attacks. To defend against Russian drones, Ukrainians have been covering roads with nets mounted on poles, stretching for hundreds of kilometres. The fishing nets will “have a second life” and “be able to save lives in Ukraine” says Gerard Le Duff, one of the volunteers behind the project.

New York (AFP) – Zohran Mamdani, Democratic Party candidate for the New York mayor seat, delivers a speech outside a mosque denouncing “Islamophobia” in politics. Mamdani makes reference to outgoing New York mayor Eric Adams and former state governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who is running as an independent. “Anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were spoken by a Republican or a Democrat,” says Mamdani, who is the frontrunner in the campaign.

Bangkok (AFP) – Around a dozen mourners dressed in black hold portraits of Thailand’s late Queen Sirikit outside the Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok, where she had been receiving medical treatment. The mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and wife of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch died late Friday at the age of 93, the palace said. Sirikit held a dual reputation as a fashionista and the nation’s caring matriarch, with some Western media featuring her on magazine covers and comparing her to former US first lady Jackie Kennedy.

Strasbourg (France) (AFP) – A Christmas tree over 30 metres tall and 7.5 tons in weight is erected on Place Kleber in Strasbourg, eastern France, ahead of its traditional Christmas market. “It’s a moment eagerly awaited every year,” says Guillaume Libsig, Strasbourg’s deputy mayor.

New Delhi (AFP) – Hindu devotees bathe in India’s sacred but highly polluted Yamuna river to the mark the first day of Chhath Puja, a four-day long festival dedicated to Hindu sun god Surya.

Bogotá (AFP) – “We do not kneel. We will not take a step back,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro tells his supporters at a rally on Bolivar Square in Bogota, as he and his family are placed on a US sanctions list. The US Treasury has blacklisted Gustavo Petro, first lady Veronica Alcocer, his eldest son Nicolas, and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, banning them from travel to the United States and freezing any US assets they hold. The rupture caps months of personal friction between US President Donald Trump and Petro over US deportations and strikes on suspected drug boats off the coast of South America.

Tokio (AFP) – Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi says she will bring US ties to “new heights” in talks with President Donald Trump, while taking a swipe at China. The comments come three days before Trump, who wants Tokyo and other allies to boost their military spending, is due to visit Japan on his way to crunch talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

London (AFP) – Big Ben’s timekeepers are preparing for Sunday’s clock change, one of the busiest nights of the year for parliament’s clock mechanics, who are charged with changing 2,000 clocks. Towering over the UK capital and its parliament, the clock will be stopped briefly to adjust for the switch to winter time — one of only two occasions each year when it is allowed to pause.

Kopenhagen (AFP) – Giant pumpkins are carved with chainsaws to be illuminated in Copenhagen’s annual Halloween competition, with this year’s winner weighing 903.5 kg. The pumpkins are carved in Tivoli Gardens, and will be donated to Copenhagen Zoo after Halloween celebrations end, where elephants and other animals can to eat them.

Miami (AFP) – “I’ve been happy since I arrived here, so I’m very happy to continue,” states football player Lionel Messi as he signs a contract extension with Inter Miami, which will see the Argentine superstar remain in Major League Soccer until the end of the 2028 season.

Gummatapura (AFP) – Dozens of devotees from the southern Indian village of Gummatapura battle it out with cow dung for the Gorehabba festival, a local celebration marking the conclusion of India’s festival of light, Diwali. The festival is unique to the village where locals believe their god — Beereshwara Swamy — was born in cow excrement. Some Hindus believe cows and everything they produce is sacred and purifying.

Budapest (AFP) – “Brussels has decided to go to war”, says Orban to his supporters during a demonstration in Budapest, as he calls the Coalition of the Willing a “war alliance”. Orban — who has close ties with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine — blames Brussels for impeding Trump’s “mission” to try to end the war in Ukraine.