AFP UK

“The future of food can be better and different from what we have now” says Tim Noakesmith, the co-founder of Vow, an Australian meat cultivation company that has created a meatball using DNA from the extinct woolly mammoth. Speaking at a presentation event at Amsterdam’s Nemo Science Museum, he explains how “you can use the mammoth meatball as a symbol for an exciting future that is better for the planet and avoid the perils of what we had originally with the woolly mammoth and maybe eat our way out of extinction”. One of the meatballs is displayed under a glass bell jar, but the product is not ready to eat yet, with its thousands-of-years-old protein requiring safety testing first.

Brussels (AFP) – As France wrestles with the end of life question, some of its citizens are going directly to Belgium to request euthanasia. One of them is Lydie Imhoff, a 43-year-old French woman, hemiplegic — or paralysed on one side of her body — from birth.

Idlib (Syria) (AFP) – A Russian jihadist has traded his weapons for wasabi by opening a small sushi restaurant in war-torn Syria’s rebel-held northwest, as the conflict wanes and fighters look for other income.

Rawalpindi (Pakistan) (AFP) – Volunteers distribute free Iftar food to Muslim devotees before breaking their fast on the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Del Mar (United States) (AFP) – Martin Cooper, an American engineer dubbed the “Father of the cell phone,” says the neat little device we all have in our pockets has almost boundless potential, but right now, we can be a little obsessed.

Fuengirola (Spain) (AFP) – A Spanish zoo successfully breeds five baby Komodo dragons for the first time in 10 years. The species, known as the largest surviving land lizard in the world, is now considered endangered, which makes their hatch in the institute “very important”.

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Fawzi Abu Ghabin and his nephew, Ramadan drummers known as “Musaharati”, roam Gaza City’s streets to awaken Muslims for the pre-dawn traditional Ramadan “Suhur” meal. 

Doha (AFP) – An Afghan toddler who was bundled onto an evacuation flight from Kabul in 2021 after her parents died in a bomb blast has been reunited with relatives at a Qatar orphanage. 

Paris (AFP) – “I use my body as a means to fight, as a tool to make political demands,” says 25-year-old Mathilde Caillard, as she dances during a protest against the French government’s pension reform.

Rolling Fork (United States) (AFP) – In the tornado-shattered small town of Rolling Fork, a giant gray metal box, normally used to keep the restaurant’s food refrigerated, saved nine lives as people used it to shelter from the disaster.

Beijing (AFP) – China says that the “true reason” behind a visit by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to the United States, a stop on her way to firm up ties with Guatemala and Belize, is to “seek breakthroughs and promote her Taiwan independence agenda.” Last year, a visit by former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan sparked an angry response from Beijing, with the Chinese military conducting drills at an unprecedented scale around the island.

Berlin (AFP) – At a questions from lawmakers session in the Bundestag, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuffs accusations from the opposition Christian Democratic Union party that he has “weakened climate protections” to keep his unprecedented traffic light-coalition government together. “Yes I am very thankful that we could push this through…but it is clear that for this law, looking towards the future, if we are to become CO2-neutral economy by 2045, we need and must want to develop further,” Scholz adds.