AFP UK

Perth (Australia) (AFP) – Australian authorities are searching for a tiny radioactive capsule along a desert highway after it went missing while being transported from a mine in the country’s remote west. The 8mm by 6mm silver capsule, which is used in mining operations, has been unaccounted for since mid-January, and contains the radioactive substance Caesium-137. It is believed to have fallen off a truck while being moved to a storage facility.

Tangerang (Indonesia) (AFP) – Ali Saga, a former leprosy patient, remembers one of the most devastating moments of his life when he visited a health clinic in Indonesian capital Jakarta. “I looked like a zombie,” he says. “‘Stand back! this person is a leper, be careful!’ I couldn’t believe it’s the doctor saying that.” Now he is using his pain to help other residents of a village on the outskirts of the capital to live a normal life after leprosy with hand-crafted prosthetic limbs. After Brazil and India, Indonesia has the world’s third-highest cases of leprosy — a contagious bacterial disease transmitted by prolonged close contact with untreated cases.

Paris (AFP) – Lion dances and traditional costumes return for Paris’ annual Lunar New year parade, as revellers welcome the year of the rabbit in the 13th arrondissement, home to a large Chinese community in the city. It is the first time the parade has been held in three years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New Delhi (AFP) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, the iconic freedom movement leader who was shot dead at point-blank range 75 years ago.

Kohat (Pakistan) (AFP) – Two separate transport accidents in western Pakistan on Sunday claimed 51 lives, when a bus plunged off a bridge and a boat on Tanda Dam carrying a class of children, aged between seven and 14, capsized.

Lima (AFP) – Anti-government protesters clash with police in the streets of Lima as Peru’s embattled president Dina Boluarte urged lawmakers to find a way out of a deepening political crisis by agreeing to snap elections in December.

Memphis (AFP) – “Say his name! Tyre Nichols!”: People take to the streets in Memphis to demand justice after a video was released showing police violently arresting Nichols, a young Black man who died a few days after the incident.

Memphis (AFP) – Images of candles and flowers at a makeshift memorial at Tobey Park, the skate park Tyre Nichols used to spend time and of the alleged intersection where the 29-year-old was arrested before the fatal assault by five police officers in Memphis, Tennessee. The southern US city braces itself for unrest as authorities prepare to release a video depicting the fatal assault.

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lays a candle on Holocaust Remembrance Day in front of the “Menorah” monument at the Babyn Yar site – a ravine in Kyiv, where Nazis executed more than 30,000 Jews in 1941. Between 1941 and 1944, about 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews were massacred, often by shooting, by Nazis who, on the move, were sometimes assisted by local collaborators.

Malatya (Turkey) (AFP) – CCTV images show a Turkish public bus crashing into the Karakaya lake in the eastern city of Malatya after its driver loses control as he was transporting passengers at Atabey Pier. Four passengers were injured in the accident but not seriously, according to Demiroren News Agency.

Israel and Palestinian militants trade missile fire after one of the deadliest army raids in the occupied West Bank in years, in which nine Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian officials. Israeli labelled the raid in the refugee camp a ‘counter terrorism operation’.

Černouček (Czech Republic) (AFP) – Retired NATO general Petr Pavel votes in the Czech presidential election run-off in which he is expected to beat billionaire former prime minister Andrej Babis. The victor will replace Milos Zeman, an outspoken and divisive politician who nursed close ties with Moscow before making a U-turn when Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Former paratrooper Pavel topped final opinion polls with 58-59 percent support, compared with 41-42 percent for Babis.