Küsnacht (Switzerland) (AFP) – People pay tribute to rock legend Tina Turner at a makeshift memorial outside her home in Kusnacht, Switzerland, after she died Wednesday at the age of 83 following a long illness. IMAGES
London (AFP) – An estimated 50 million people are living in modern slavery around the world, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index report compiled by the human rights charity Walk Free. The group defines modern slavery as any kind of forced labour or marriage, debt bondage, human trafficking and sexual exploitation. North Korea, Eritrea and Mauritania have the highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world, with three Arab countries in the top 10 for the first time which also saw solar panels on the list, with evidence pointing to renewable industries relying on forced labour.
Santiago Xalitzintla (Mexico) (AFP) – Local authorities delivered emergency kits to protect people from the ashes of the Popocatepetl volcano, which is spewing smoke, ash and lava.
Nanterre (France) (AFP) – Hundreds of people simulate a scenario in which a 15,000-seat stand collapses at the Paris La Défense Arena. The exercise is meant to train emergency services for crises, as the city prepares to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Valencia (United States) (AFP) – A dress worn by actress Carrie Fisher playing Princess Leia in “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” will go on sale, along with 1,400 other film and TV memorabilia.
Paris (AFP) – French far-right leader Marine Le Pen testifies before the parliamentary committee on foreign interference, which is investigating potential links between her National Rally party and Russia. At the centre of the investigation is a 9.4 million euro loan her party took out from a Czech-Russian bank, which is still being repaid. “If it had committed me to anything, I wouldn’t have signed this loan,” Le Pen insists.
Prague (AFP) – Opened in late 2022, Prague’s “Lumia” light exhibition showcases cutting edge video mapping, light illusions and interactive projections in the heart of the capital of the Czech Republic’s historic city centre. The exhibition is the brainchild of artist Filip Feex, who invested his own money and took out a loan to bring it to life.
Kicks, hair-pulling and clenched fists: a scuffle breaks out in the Bolivian parliament after lawmakers from the country’s leftist ruling party tried to remove protest banners held by the opposition over the detention of Luis Fernando Camacho, the conservative governor of the Santa Cruz region. The protest came as Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo gave a presentation defending the legality of Camacho’s arrest where he branded parliamentarians from Creemos, Camacho’s party, as “radical, thieving and violent” people intent on “stealing the wallets of the Bolivian people.”
Crimea (AFP) – As Russian-installed authorities in Crimea announce a new wave of seizures of Ukrainian-owned property, Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed governor of the annexed peninsula, says the assets seized include “large wine-making enterprises, banks” and the flat of Ukraine’s “drug addict” president Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia annexed the peninsula from Kyiv in 2014, which has still not been recognised by the international community.
Beijing (AFP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Beijing. Mishustin’s trip is the highest-level visit by a Russian official to China since last year’s invasion of Ukraine.
Silves (Portugal) (AFP) – Portuguese police search a remote reservoir at the behest of German authorities as they probe the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann. Three years old at the time, McCann vanished without trace from her parent’s holiday apartment in May 2007. Despite a huge international manhunt, she has never been found and no one has been charged over her disappearance.
Stellenbosch (South Africa) (AFP) – South African olive oil producers are sliding to the top and winning praise for the quality of their product at home and abroad.
