A Chinese flag flies at half-mast outside the ministry of foreign affairs building in Bejing following the death of former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang died Wednesday at the age of 96, state media reported, hailing him as a great communist revolutionary who helped quell the 1989 pro-democracy protests. IMAGES
France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his US counterpart Joe Biden walk out of Fiola Mare restaurant in the Georgetown neighbourhood after private dinner in Washington. IMAGES
Arlington (United States) (AFP) – French President Emmanuel Macron attends a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia, before addressing the French community and meeting US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden for dinner.
French President Emmanuel Macron presides over a decoration ceremony at the French embassy in Washington, DC, presenting US veterans with Legion d’Honneur medals and thanking them for their service.
Vatican City (AFP) – An acrobatic dance group from Kenya, “The Black Blues Brothers”, perform for Pope Francis during his weekly general audience on St. Peter’s Square, with both the Holy Father and the public clapping their show. IMAGES
Rabat (AFP) – “We are very happy,” says Veronique Roger-Lacan, Permanent Delegate of France to UNESCO, after the UN agency awarded the French baguette heritage status. It comes at a challenging time for the industry with France losing some 400 artisanal bakeries every year since 1970.
Lambayeque (Peru) (AFP) – Archeologists have rediscovered a pre-Hispanic fresco depicting mythological scenes in northern Peru that they had only seen in black and white photographs that were more than a century old. The mural’s existence became known in 1916, through black and white photographs taken by German ethnologist Hans Heinrich Brüning.
Paris (AFP) – The French baguette — “250 grams of magic and perfection”, in the words of President Emmanuel Macron, and a quintessential part of French life — was given UNESCO heritage status on Wednesday.
Bucharest (AFP) – “China is very important to push Russia to an agreement,” says Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani at the start of a NATO ministerial meeting in Bucharest. The second day of talks is due to focus on Russia’s Eastern neighbours, the Western Balkans but also China.
Antofagasta (Chile) (AFP) – It may be one of the driest places on Earth — a brutal, alien landscape where life seems impossible. But Chile’s massive Atacama Desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world. Mountains of discarded clothing and rows upon rows of scrapped tires and cars blight at least three regions of the desert in northern Chile.
Minsk (AFP) – Maria Kolesnikova, the last remaining protest leader still in Belarus, has been admitted to intensive care in hospital, according to her allies. Kolesnikova is serving an 11 year prison sentence after being accused of “plotting to seize power” in 2021. PROFILE of Maria Kolesnikova, Belarus opposition figure
Brussels (AFP) – EU chief Ursula von der Leyen floats the idea of a “specialised court” to put Russia’s top officials on trial for the war in Ukraine. “While continuing to support the International Criminal Court, we are proposing to set up a specialised court backed by the United Nations to investigate and prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression,” she says in a video statement.
