AFP UK

Lokoja (Nigeria) (AFP) – Hundreds of homes are destroyed, thousands of people homeless, and roads left inaccessible, after the worst flooding in a decade in Nigeria’s Kogi State.

Kotka (Finland) (AFP) – The eastern Finnish city of Kotka removes a statue of Lenin from a public park in the city centre, near a wooden house where the Bolshevik Party founder is rumoured to have stayed. The statue is the last large public monument to the Soviet leader to remain in the Nordic country.

Atacama (Chile) (AFP) – Flowers bloom in the southern part of the Atacama Desert, the most arid region of the world. Chilean President Gabriel Boric recently announced that the area would be made a national park to protect the flowering phenomenon.

Zelenodolsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Hundreds of abandoned bicycles in a small warehouse in the town of Zelenodolsk, near Ukraine’s southern front line, tell the stories of their owners, who were forced to flee Russia’s invasion. They come in all colours: green, red, black, blue… One has a knitted saddle cover, another a small pouch attached to the frame, many others look rusty and tested by time. “People were running away with what they could take,” says municipal worker, Vitaliy Rekhlitsky, “you could see that there were bags on the bikes.”

Panmunjom (South Korea) (AFP) – Images of the Panmunjom, Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and North Korea seen from South Korea. North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan on Tuesday, prompting Tokyo to activate the country’s missile alert system and order people to take shelter. The last time North Korea fired a missile over Japan was in 2017, at the height of a period of “fire and fury” when Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un traded insults with then-US president Donald Trump. South Korea’s military said it had detected the launch of an IRBM, which flew around 4,500 km (2800 miles) at an altitude of about 970 km and speeds of around Mach 17. IMAGES

Malang (Indonesia) (AFP) – Local communities pray outside Indonesia’s Kanjuruhan stadium in Malang three days after the deadly stampede that killed at least 125 people. 

Beijing (AFP) – Ahead of the 20th Party Congress, where President Xi Jinping is expected to secure an unprecedented third term, former Tsinghua University political science professor Wu Qiang speaks about a “transformation of the party” during the leader’s first ten years in power. “(Xi Jinping) wants to become the successor to Mao, and even wants to make China the sole rightful inheritor of the global Communist movement today,” Wu says in a small, book-strewn apartment on the outskirts of Beijing. He is one of the last Chinese academics who refuses to be silenced by the Communist Party’s crackdown on intellectuals.

Buenos Aires (AFP) – Argentines gather in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo for an improvised barter fair to exchange goods and protest high inflation and low wages. “We are doing it so that the government can see the situation we are in, that the salary we have is not enough for anything”, says Felix, a bartering participant. This exchange method was very common in Argentina during the 2001 economic crisis.

Malang (Indonesia) (AFP) – At least 125 people, including 32 children, died in Indonesia’s stadium crush on the 1 October, as police moved to punish those responsible for one of the deadliest disasters in football history.

Paris (AFP) – For the past few weeks, six French dancers — four ‘B-Boys’ and two ‘B-Girls’ — have been training in Paris at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP) hoping to become the first medallists in the history of breakdancing at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Algete (Spain) (AFP) – With a vast wardrobe catering to everything from “House of the Dragon” to “Peaky Blinders” or “The Crown”, Spain’s Peris Costumes has carved out a well-tailored niche for itself, renting costumes to producers across the globe.

Vatican City (AFP) – Thousands of people come out to watch images and words from the life of St Peter projected onto the façade of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. The facade was lit up as part of the ‘Art and Faith’ initiatives organised by St Peter’s Basilica’s pastoral groups.