AFP UK

Quito (AFP) – Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa and Venezuela’s opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia meet at Carondelet Palace in Quito. IMAGES

Shantou (Chine) (AFP) – Physical exertion and deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes have long excluded women from lion dancing, but one troupe in southern China is training female dancers in an attempt to revitalise the tradition. Lion dancing mixes acrobatics, martial arts and theatre and is believed to bring prosperity and protection from evil spirits.

Kinshasa (AFP) – Protesters are targeting the French and Belgian embassies in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa, criticising international inaction amid the escalating conflict in the country’s east. The M23 armed group and Rwandan soldiers have entered the city of Goma following days of deadly fighting with government forces.

Goma (RD Congo) (AFP) – Pro-Rwandan forces have entered the besieged city of Goma, the regional capital of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, following days of fierce and deadly fighting with government forces. The conflict has cut off water supply and electricity to local residents calling for the international community to help.

Hanoï (AFP) – Exhausted after 12 hours of cooking, Nguyen Thi Thuy Hong gently unpeels the last of five leaves encasing a squishy, sticky rice cake known as “banh chung” — a Lunar New Year delicacy in Vietnam. Thi Thuy Hong has made the dish for 40 years, sticking with a tradition that many families have moved away from.

Pont-Réan (France) (AFP) – Flood waters have reached levels unseen in decades in western France, as the Ille-et-Vilaine region was placed on red alert for flooding on Tuesday. Heavy rainfall from Storm Herminia caused the worst flooding in 40 years in Rennes and the surrounding area.

Nations unies (États-Unis) (AFP) – Israel will cease all contact with the UN’s Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and any other body acting on its behalf, Israel’s envoy to the UN says after repeatedly accusing the organization of undermining its security.

Bogotá (AFP) – Images released by the Colombian Foreign Ministry show Colombian migrants deported by the United States disembarking from a military plane at the Catam military airport on the outskirts of Bogota. IMAGES

Krakau (AFP) – Commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day “is both a sombre and indeed a sacred moment,” says Britain’s King Charles III as he visits the Jewish community centre in Krakow, Poland, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Pont-Réan (AFP) – France has placed swathes of Brittany in the west of the country on red weather alert as a violent storm brings flood levels not seen in decades. “There’s a risk that the river will continue to rise until perhaps tomorrow,” says Dominique Delamarre, mayor of flood-hit town Guichen Pont-Réan, near the city of Rennes.

Peking (AFP) – Beijing residents and visitors skate on one of the Chinese capital’s frozen lakes ahead of the Lunar New Year, as the country still struggles to cement its economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, beset by a property sector crisis, chronically low consumption and high youth unemployment. “I hope the Year of the Snake will be better than the Year of the Dragon,” says export trade worker Zhong Haiping.

Gaza (AFP) – “We feel happy but at the same time we’re sad because we lost many of our loved ones,” says Entissar Al-Saeedi, one of thousands of Gazans who have begun streaming towards the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip after Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages. On 27 January, US President Donald Trump floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, drawing condemnation from regional leaders.