World Culture Mosaic

Beed (India) (AFP) – When wedding season comes in India, the phone of child rights activist Tatwashil Kamble never stops ringing with appeals to stop girls from being married off due to poverty.

Kamble said he has helped stop thousands of illegal marriages in India, where nuptials before the age of 18 are banned.

"The elders of the village think: 'How dare we come to stop a marriage in their village!'" said Kamble, who has been campaigning for more than a decade in western Maharashtra state.

Many families are motivated by poverty to marry off their daughters, so that the girls can start earning their own living.

When activists have sought to stop marriages, "it has led to physical altercations", according to Kamble.

Sometimes they are able to stop the nuptials from taking place, or, if they arrive too late, then the bride is taken to a shelter and supported in deciding on her own future.

India accounts for one in three of the world's child brides, according to the UN children's agency, with at least 1.5 million girls getting married each year.

Kamble said he is driven by the bitter memory of seeing a teenager die of blood loss during labour.

"That's when I thought: so many young girls are getting married and, even after their death, it's not being called child marriage. They are saying 'the mother has died'" without acknowledging she was a girl.

Kamble works in the Beed district of Maharashtra, an area dominated by sprawling sugarcane fields hit hard by years of drought.

Workers said they have little choice but to marry their daughters off young -- arguing they do it to protect the girl, not harm her.

"It is not like we don't like the idea of education," said Manisha Barde, a sugarcane cutter who was a child bride herself.

"We want her to become a doctor."

Barde, however, arranged for her teenage daughter to be married only to be stopped by authorities.

She did so because they were poor and, if they had "better jobs, we wouldn't have thought of her marriage".

Farm labourers said that when their children are little, relatives look after them or they come to the fields.

But when the girls become teenagers, their parents begin to worry -- either that they could start a relationship before marriage, or be subjected to sexual violence.

"There are very few girls who stay unmarried until 18," said Ashok Tangde, district chief of the child welfare committee.

"I have seen girls who have never seen a school," he said.

Families worry for "the girl's safety", Tangde said, and even those opposed to child marriage can end up organising a wedding.

Tangde said his team received 321 calls from across the district about child marriages that were taking place, or about to happen, in the first five months of this year.

During peak wedding season, which runs from October to March, Tangde said he gets around 10 to 15 calls daily, which prompt his team and other activists to raid ceremonies.

Tangde has a dedicated network of activists and other informants who help in villages across the district, sending photographs of weddings.

"There are some people who want to do the right thing," he said.

Sometimes the bride calls directly. Other times, a guest rings and makes the authorities listen to the wedding music.

"Disrupting a wedding... there is a lot of drama," said Tangde.

"People get ready to beat up those who go to stop such marriages."

Jyoti Thorat was 16 when her parents married her off to a 20-year-old man, ending her hopes of continuing school and joining the police.

"My parents fixed it, and I wasn't happy," Thorat said, a decade later and a mother of two schoolboys.

Her older sisters had also been married off before they turned 18, with her parents prioritising getting their only son educated.

Thorat recalled with despair how work cutting cane beckoned soon after her wedding, a fate that awaits other girls.

"They have to start working as sugarcane workers that same year," she said. "A machete is ready for them."

Itoman (Japan) (AFP) – Trekking through mud and rocks in Japan's humid Okinawan jungle, Takamatsu Gushiken reached a slope of ground where human remains have lain forgotten since World War II.

The 72-year-old said a brief prayer and lifted a makeshift protective covering, exposing half-buried bones believed to be those of a young Japanese soldier.

"These remains have the right to be returned to their families," said Gushiken, a businessman who has voluntarily searched for the war dead for more than four decades.

The sun-kissed island in southern Japan on Monday marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Okinawa.

The three-month carnage, often dubbed the "Typhoon of Steel", killed about 200,000 people, almost half of them local civilians.

Since then, Japan and the United States have become allies, and, according to official estimates, only 2,600 bodies are yet to be recovered.

But residents and long-time volunteers like Gushiken say many more are buried under buildings or farm fields, or hidden in jungles and caves.

Now rocks and soil from southern parts of Okinawa Island, where the bloodiest fighting took place, are being quarried in order to build the foundations for a new US air base.

The plan has sparked anger among Gushiken and others, who say it will disturb the remains of World War II casualties, likely killed by Americans.

And while Okinawa is a popular beach getaway these days, its lush jungles have preserved the scars of combat from March to June 1945, when the US military stormed ashore to advance its final assaults on Imperial Japan.

Walking through meandering forest trails in Itoman district, on the southern end of Okinawa, Gushiken imagined where he would have hidden as a local or a soldier under attack, or where he may have searched if he were an American soldier.

After climbing over moss-covered rocks on a narrow, leafy trail, Gushiken reached a low-lying crevice between bus-size boulders, only big enough to shelter two or three people.

He carefully shifted through the soil strewn with fragmented bones, shirt buttons used by Japanese soldiers, a rusty lid for canned food, and a metal fitting for a gas mask.

At another spot nearby, he and an associate in April found a full skeleton of a possible soldier who appeared to have suffered a blast wound to his face.

And only a few steps from there, green-coloured thigh and shin bones of another person laid among the dried leaves, fallen branches and vines.

"All these people here... their final words were 'mom, mom'," Gushiken said, arguing that society has a responsibility to bring the remains to family tombs.

Gushiken was a 28-year-old scout leader when he was first asked to help search for the war dead, and was shocked to realise there were so many people's remains, in such a vast area.

He didn't think he could bring himself to do it again, but over time he decided he should do his part to reunite family members in death.

After the war ended, survivors in Okinawa who had been held captive by US forces returned to their wrecked hometowns.

As they desperately tried to restart their lives, the survivors collected dead bodies in mass graves, or buried them individually with no record of their identity.

"They saw their communities completely burned. People couldn't tell where their houses were. Bodies dangled from tree branches," said Mitsuru Matsukawa, 72, from a foundation that helps manage Okinawa Peace Memorial Park. The site includes a national collective cemetery for war dead.

Some young people have joined the efforts to recover remains, like Wataru Ishiyama, a university student in Kyoto who travels often to Okinawa.

The 22-year-old history major is a member of Japan Youth Memorial Association, a group focused on recovering Japanese war remains at home and abroad.

"These people have been waiting in such dark and remote areas for so many decades, so I want to return them to their families -- every last one," he said.

Ishiyama's volunteering has inspired an interest in modern Japan's "national defence and security issues", he said, adding that he was considering a military-related career.

The new US air base is being built on partly reclaimed land in Okinawa's north, while its construction material is being excavated in the south.

"It is a sacrilege to the war dead to dump the land that has absorbed their blood into the sea to build a new military base," Gushiken said.

Jungle areas that may contain World War II remains should be preserved for their historic significance and serve as peace memorials to remind the world of the atrocity of war, he told AFP.

"We are now in a generation when fewer and fewer people can recall the Battle of Okinawa," Gushiken added.

"Now, only bones, the fields and various discovered items will remain to carry on the memories."

Kuching (Malaysia) (AFP) – Dressed in colourful costumes, some sporting feathered headgear and traditional swords, several thousand of Malaysia's ethnic Dayak people paraded in the streets of Sarawak state on Borneo island Saturday to celebrate the ending of the rice harvest season.

The Gawai Dayak 2025 Parade in state capital Kuching is the only annual gathering by representatives of around 11 of Sarawak's main Dayak groups -- which participants said helps to keep alive a unique part of the Southeast Asian nation's culture.

Marchers gathered from early Saturday under the blistering tropical sun, many of them travelling long distances by bus to walk in the parade along the banks of the Sarawak River.

"This gathering is something that is very important to me," said Joel Zacchaeus Anak Ebi, sporting the traditional Iban headgear worn by one of Borneo's best-known tribes.

People "must know and realise that Sarawak has traditions and cultures that must be preserved," he told AFP ahead of the march, which was also attended by Sarawak Premier Abang Johari Tun Openg.

"A day like this brings our people together, especially the younger people, who can easily lose touch with their roots when they move away from Sarawak," said Dayak village elder Ngindang Rambo, 61.

Watching the parade, Masha Timosha, 34, a tour guide from Russia, said she was amazed by the costumes and atmosphere.

"This is just very impressive. I even have my own Sarawakian costume but I didn't put it on," she told AFP.

Malaysia's Dayak people are mainly riverine and hill-dwelling, made up of dozens of ethnic groups, each with their own distinct dialect, customs, laws and practices.

Dayak communities however have become increasingly under threat from encroaching palm oil forestry and industrial logging, human rights groups and Indigenous groups have said.

Many Indigenous communities in Sarawak face challenges in accessing basic services, Human Rights Watch said in a statement last month, including access to running water, electricity and land titles.

Local groups and international observers have also called on the government to "urgently legislate Indigenous customs and traditions through which Indigenous people have acquired rights to their lands, territories and resources," the Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia) said last year.

Rainforest-clad Borneo is the world's third-largest island and is shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Abidjan (AFP) – Army strongmen who have seized power in coups across Africa's Sahel region since 2020 have ramped up pressure on foreign mining companies in the name of greater control over their countries' riches.

Niger's nationalisation of the local branch of French uranium giant Orano on Thursday is the latest such measure by the junta and its allies in Burkina Faso and Mali.

In particular the coup-hit trio, which have all turned their backs on their shared former colonial master France in favour of stronger ties with Russia, have placed Western firms firmly in their sights.

Niger's nationalisation of Orano's local branch Somair has brought a months-long struggle with the French firm to a peak.

Orano, which is 90-percent owned by the French state, had already admitted to having lost operational control of its subsidiary months ago.

Meanwhile in Mali, Canadian giant Barrick Mining is locked in a tug-of-war with the army over a mining code that came into force in 2023. The military is demanding hundreds of millions of dollars of back taxes from the firm.

Barrick has since lost control of Loulo-Gounkoto, the country's largest gold mine, in which the Canadian firm holds a majority stake.

In November 2024, Malian soldiers arrested the director of Australia's Resolute Mining, along with two employees. All were subsequently released after Resolute agreed to pay the junta $160 million in exchange.

Other mine companies such as Canada's allied Gold, B2Gold and Robex had previously agreed to review their activities and pay to settle their tax or customs dispute.

And in 2023 Burkina Faso seized 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of gold produced by a branch of Canada's Endeavour Mining on "public necessity" grounds.

For the juntas, the point of the push against foreign mining companies is to reestablish sovereignty and control over their national resources.

Where they believed the Sahel's resource riches were previously sold out to foreigners, and to the West in particular, today the army leaders promise their people that ordinary citizen will receive a greater share of the profits from the wealth under their feet.

Niger produces nearly five percent of the world's uranium. Gold makes up a quarter of Mali's national budget.

And Burkina Faso's gold production contributes around 14 percent of the country's revenues, according to official statistics.

"The population sees this as a push to free states which were previously, according to the new authorities, subservient to Westerners and therefore foreign interests," said Jeremie Taieb, director of consulting firm Tikva Partners.

This rejection therefore "helps to satisfy public opinion and nurtures a narrative that allows those in power to keep it", Taieb added.

All three countries are plagued by jihadist violence, which has claimed thousands of lives across the region.

Besides economic sanctions imposed on the juntas in the wake of the coups, "the pressures exerted to fund the fight against terrorism" provide as good a reason as any "to extract more income from the sector", said Beverly Ochieng, an analyst at Control Risks.

To fight back against the juntas, the mining industry has looked to international arbitration.

Barrick has turned to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the Washington-based World Bank.

France's Orano has launched various lawsuits against the state of Niger, accusing the junta of a "systematic policy of stripping mining assets".

In a statement Friday evening, the day after Niger announced its intention to nationalise its subsidiary, the firm said it "intends to claim compensation for all of its damages and assert its rights over the stock corresponding to Somair's production to date".

For Taieb, this "legal instability" in the Sahel could drive investors towards countries with a more reliable business backdrop.

But for Control Risks' Ochieng, "foreign firms will probably continue to engage with administrations in the Sahel... as mining assets represent a hefty and long-term investment".

In any case the countries that stand to gain most from the current climate are Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso's so-called "security partners" -- especially Turkey, China and Russia.

On Monday, Mali and Russia began construction work on a new gold refinery in the Malian capital Bamako. Moscow has also sent mercenaries from its paramilitary Africa Corps to the Sahel country to help fight jihadists.

For the Russians, the deal is "minerals for weapons, in the same way that for the Chinese, it's minerals for infrastructure", said Taieb.

Dukan (Iraq) (AFP) – Water levels at Iraq's vast Dukan Dam reservoir have plummeted as a result of dwindling rains and further damming upstream, hitting millions of inhabitants already impacted by drought with stricter water rationing.

Amid these conditions, visible cracks have emerged in the retreating shoreline of the artificial lake, which lies in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region and was created in the 1950s.

Dukan Lake has been left three quarters empty, with its director Kochar Jamal Tawfeeq explaining its reserves currently stand at around 1.6 billion cubic metres of water out of a possible seven billion.

That is "about 24 percent" of its capacity, the official said, adding that the level of water in the lake had not been so low in roughly 20 years.

Satellite imagery analysed by AFP shows the lake's surface area shrank by 56 percent between the end of May 2019, the last year it was completely full, and the beginning of June 2025.

Tawfeeq blamed climate change and a "shortage of rainfall" explaining that the timing of the rains had also become irregular.

Over the winter season, Tawfeeq said the Dukan region received 220 millimetres (8.7 inches) of rain, compared to a typical 600 millimetres.

Upstream damming of the Little Zab River, which flows through Iran and feeds Dukan, was a secondary cause of the falling water levels, Tawfeeq explained.

Also buffeted by drought, Iran has built dozens of structures on the river to increase its own water reserves.

Baghdad has criticised these kinds of dams, built both by Iran and neighbouring Turkey, accusing them of significantly restricting water flow into Iraq via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Iraq, and its 46 million inhabitants, have been intensely impacted by the effects of climate change, experiencing rising temperatures, year-on-year droughts and rampant desertification.

At the end of May, the country's total water reserves were at their lowest level in 80 years.

On the slopes above Dukan lies the village of Sarsian, where Hussein Khader Sheikhah, 57, was planting a summer crop on a hectare of land.

The farmer said he hoped a short-term summer crop of the kind typically planted in the area for an autumn harvest -- cucumbers, melons, chickpeas, sunflower seeds and beans -- would help him offset some of the losses over the winter caused by drought.

In winter, in another area near the village, he planted 13 hectares mainly of wheat.

"The harvest failed because of the lack of rain," he explained, adding that he lost an equivalent of almost $5,700 to the poor yield.

"I can't make up for the loss of 13 hectares with just one hectare near the river," he added.

The water shortage at Dukan has affected around four million people downstream in the neighbouring Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk governorates, including their access to drinking water.

For more than a month, water treatment plants in Kirkuk have been trying to mitigate a sudden, 40 percent drop in the supplies reaching them, according to local water resource official Zaki Karim.

In a country ravaged by decades of conflict, with crumbling infrastructure and floundering public policies, residents already receive water intermittently.

The latest shortages are forcing even "stricter rationing" and more infrequent water distributions, Karim said.

In the province of roughly two million inhabitants, the aim is to minimise the impact on the provincial capital of Kirkuk.

"If some treatment plants experience supply difficulties, we will ensure that there are no total interruptions, so everyone can receive their share," Karim said.

Havana (AFP) – With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba's elderly struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America's poorest and fastest-aging countries.

As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for some 2.4 million inhabitants -- more than a quarter of the population -- aged 60 and over.

Sixty is the age at which women -- for men it's 65 -- qualify for the state pension which starts at 1,528 Cuban pesos per month.

This is less than $13 at the official exchange rate and a mere $4 on the informal street market where most Cubans do their shopping.

"Fight for life, for death is certain," vendor Isidro Manuet, 73, told AFP sitting on a sidewalk in the heart of Havana, his skin battered by years in the sun, several of his front teeth missing.

"I manage to live, survive, nothing more," he said of his meager income that allows him to buy a little food, and not much else.

As he spoke to AFP, Manuet looked on as small groups of people walked by his stall carrying bags full of food.

They were coming out of Casalinda, one of several part government-run megastores that sells goods exclusively to holders of US dollars -- a small minority of Cubans.

Most rely instead on informal stalls such as the ones Manuet and other elderly Cubans set up on sidewalks every morning to sell fruit, coffee, cigarettes, candy, used clothes and other second-hand goods.

Near Manuet's stall, 70-year-old Antonia Diez sells clothing and makeup.

"Things are bad, really bad," she sighs, shaking her head.

Many of Cuba's elderly have been without family support since 2022, when the biggest migratory exodus in the country's history began amid a crisis marked by food, fuel and medicine shortages, power blackouts and rampant inflation.

More beggars can be seen on Havana's streets -- though there are no official figures -- and every now and then an elderly person can be spotted rummaging through garbage bins for something to eat, or sell.

The Cuban crisis, which Havana blames on decades of US sanctions but analysts say was fueled by government economic mismanagement and tourism tanking under the Covid-19 pandemic, has affected the public purse too, with cuts in welfare spending.

As a result, the government has struggled to buy enough of the staples it has made available for decades to impoverished Cubans at heavily subsidized prices under the "libreta" ration book system.

It is the only way many people have to access affordable staples such as rice, sugar and beans -- when there is any.

Diez said she used to receive an occasional state-sponsored food package, "but it's been a while since they've sent anything."

This all means that many products can only be found at "dollar stores" such as Casalinda, or private markets where most people cannot afford to shop.

According to the University of Havana's Center for Cuban Economic Studies, in 2023 a Cuban family of three would have needed 12 to 14 times the average minimum monthly salary of 2,100 pesos (around $17) to meet their basic food needs.

Official figures show about 68,000 Cubans over 60 rely on soup kitchens run by the state Family Assistance System for one warm meal per day.

At one such facility, "Las Margaritas," a plate of food costs about 13 pesos (11 dollar cents). Pensioner Eva Suarez, 78, has been going there daily for 18 months.

"The country is in such need. There's no food, there's nothing," she told AFP, adding her pension is basically worthless "because everything is so expensive."

Inflation rose by 190 percent between 2018 and 2023, but pensions have not kept pace.

Some are losing faith in communism, brought to the island by Fidel Castro's revolution, and its unfulfilled promises such as a liter of subsidized milk for every child under seven per day.

"I have nothing, my house is falling apart," said Lucy Perez, a 72-year-old economist who retired with 1,600 pesos (about 13 dollars) a month after a 36-year career.

"The situation is dire. The nation has no future."

It's not just the elderly suffering.

Cuba was rocked by unprecedented anti-government protests in 2021, and students have been rebelling in recent months due to a steep hike in the cost of mobile internet -- which only arrived on the island seven years ago.

In January, the government announced a partial dollarization of the economy that has angered many unable to lay their hands on greenbacks.

Kamphaeng Phet (Thailand) (AFP) – In the thick, steamy forests of western Thailand, 20 skittish sambar deer dart from an enclosure into the undergrowth -- unaware they may find themselves in the jaws of one of the habitat's 200 or so endangered tigers.

The release is part of a project run by the government and conservation group WWF to provide tigers with prey to hunt and eat, which has helped the big cat make a remarkable recovery in Thailand.

The wild tiger population in Thailand's Western Forest Complex, near the border with Myanmar, has increased almost fivefold in the last 15 years from about 40 in 2007 to between 179 and 223 last year, according to the kingdom's Department of National Parks (DNP).

It is an uptick that WWF's Tigers Alive initiative leader Stuart Chapman calls "extraordinary", especially as no other country in Southeast Asia has seen tiger numbers pick up at all.

The DNP and the WWF have been breeding sambar, which are native to Thailand but classed as vulnerable, and releasing them as prey.

Now in its fifth year, the prey release is a "very good activity," says the DNP's Chaiya Danpho, as it addresses the ecosystem's lack of large ungulates for tigers to eat.

Worrapan Phumanee, a research manager for WWF Thailand, says that deer were previously scarce in the area, impacting the tiger population.

But "since starting the project, we've seen tigers become regular residents here and successfully breed," he says.

Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have all lost their native populations of Indochinese tigers, while Myanmar is thought to have just 23 left in the wild, in large part due to poaching and wildlife trafficking.

Over the past century numbers worldwide have fallen from about 100,000 individuals to an estimated 5,500, according to the IUCN, which classifies tigers as endangered due to habitat loss and overhunting of the species and their natural prey.

But major tiger recoveries have been recorded in India and Nepal, where in recent years numbers of Bengal tigers have grown to 3,600 and 355 respectively thanks to conservation measures.

In a forest clearing in Khlong Lan National Park, DNP staff open the gate of the sambar deer enclosure where 10 males and 10 females have been grazing.

The deer watch cautiously as one brave individual darts out, before the rest follow at speed and disappear into the trees.

Worrapan says prey release programmes -- now also happening in Cambodia and Malaysia -- are part of wider restoration efforts to "rebuild ecosystems" in Southeast Asia, where they have been adapted for local purposes from similar initiatives that have existed for years in Africa.

The breeding and releases also aim to solve the problem of the sambar deer's own population decline due to hunting, says Worrapan.

"The purpose of releasing deer is not solely to serve as tiger prey but also to restore the deer population," he says, adding that GPS collar-monitoring has allowed researchers to track their lives after release.

He says despite having only known captivity, the deer show a strong ability to adapt to outside threats.

"(They) don't simply wait passively. They try to evade predators and choose safe areas to thrive."

Chaiya says only a small number of the released deer end up as predator dinner, with most going on to reproduce.

The sambar deer and their offspring "play a role in the food chain within the ecosystem, serving as prey for predators," he says.

Shanghai (AFP) – Small, fuzzy and baring sharp teeth, Chinese toymaker Pop Mart's Labubu monster dolls have taken over the world, drawing excited crowds at international stores and adorning the handbags of celebrities such as Rihanna and Cher.

Beijing-based Pop Mart is part of a rising tide of Chinese cultural exports gaining traction abroad, furry ambassadors of a "cool" China even in places associated more with negative public opinion of Beijing such as Europe and North America.

Labubus, which typically sell for around $40, are released in limited quantities and sold in "blind boxes", meaning buyers don't know the exact model they will receive.

The dolls are "a bit quirky and ugly and very inclusive, so people can relate", interior designer Lucy Shitova told AFP at a Pop Mart store in London, where in-person sales of Labubus have been suspended over fears that fans could turn violent in their quest for the toys.

"Now everything goes viral... because of social media. And yes, it's cool. It's different."

While neighbouring East Asian countries South Korea and Japan are globally recognised for their high-end fashion, cinema and pop songs, China's heavily censored film and music industry have struggled to attract international audiences, and the country's best-known clothing exporter is fast-fashion website Shein.

There have been few success stories of Chinese companies selling upmarket goods under their own brands, faced with stereotypes of cheap and low-quality products.

"It has been hard for the world's consumers to perceive China as a brand-creating nation," the University of Maryland's Fan Yang told AFP.

Pop Mart has bucked the trend, spawning copycats dubbed by social media users as "lafufus" and detailed YouTube videos on how to verify a doll's authenticity.

Brands such as designer womenswear label Shushu/Tong, Shanghai-based Marchen and Beijing-based handbag maker Songmont have also gained recognition abroad over the past few years.

"It might just be a matter of time before even more Chinese brands become globally recognisable," Yang said.

Through viral exports like Labubu, China is "undergoing a soft-power shift where its products and image are increasingly cool among young Westerners," said Allison Malmsten, an analyst at China-based Daxue Consulting.

Malmsten said she believed social media could boost China's global image "similar to that of Japan in the 80s to 2010s with Pokemon and Nintendo".

Video app TikTok -- designed by China's ByteDance -- paved the way for Labubu's ascent when it became the first Chinese-branded product to be indispensable for young people internationally.

Joshua Kurlantzick from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) told AFP that "TikTok probably played a role in changing consumers' minds about China".

TikTok, which is officially blocked within China but still accessible with VPN software, has over one billion users, including what the company says is nearly half of the US population.

The app has become a focus of national security fears in the United States, with a proposed ban seeing American TikTok users flock to another Chinese app, Rednote, where they were welcomed as digital "refugees".

A conduit for Chinese social media memes and fashion trends, TikTok hosts over 1.7 million videos about Labubu.

Cultural exports can "improve the image of China as a place that has companies that can produce globally attractive goods or services", CFR's Kurlantzick told AFP.

"I don't know how much, if at all, this impacts images of China's state or government," he said, pointing to how South Korea's undeniable soft power has not translated into similar levels of political might.

While plush toys alone might not translate into actual power, the United States' chaotic global image under the Trump presidency could benefit perceptions of China, the University of Maryland's Yang said.

"The connection many make between the seeming decline of US soft power and the potential rise in China's global image may reflect how deeply intertwined the two countries are in the minds of people whose lives are impacted by both simultaneously," she told AFP.

At the very least, Labubu's charms appear to be promoting interest in China among the younger generation.

"It's like a virus. Everyone just wants it," Kazakhstani mother-of-three Anelya Batalova told AFP at Pop Mart's theme park in Beijing.

Qatari Maryam Hammadi, 11, posed for photos in front of a giant Labubu statue.

"In our country, they love Labubu," she said.

"So, when they realise that the origin of Labubu is in China, they'd like to come to see the different types of Labubu in China."

Damascus (AFP) – For days, Syrians have watched as Iranian missiles and Israeli interceptors light up the skies over their territory, but the new government in Damascus has so far remained officially silent on the unprecedented conflict.

Iran was one of former ruler Bashar al-Assad's biggest backers, playing a crucial role in propping up his government by providing military advisers and the support of affiliated armed groups throughout the 14-year Syrian civil war.

Israel, meanwhile, has occupied the Golan Heights since seizing it from Syria in 1967, and has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone there since December, when the fall of Assad at the hands of an Islamist-led coalition sparked a wave of Israeli air strikes on military targets.

But despite both countries looming large in Syrian affairs over the years, Damascus -- and everyday Syrians -- appear eager to keep the current crisis at arm's length.

"From my balcony at night, I watch the missiles going towards Israel and the anti-missile systems, and I observe the explosions in the sky," said surgeon Mohammed Khayr al-Jirudi.

"The people are fed up with everything related to killing and destruction, we've had enough. Therefore, we are currently in the position of spectators to both sides, and will not gloat over either of them."

On Friday, Israel launched an unprecedented campaign against Iran, saying it aimed to stop the country from obtaining the nuclear bomb -- an ambition Tehran denies.

Iran has responded with barrages of ballistic missiles targeting Israeli cities, with the exchanges of fire sparking fears of regional spillover.

Unlike most Arab countries, which issued strong condemnations of Israel's strikes, Syria's new government has not commented on the war, potentially signalling a shift in the country's regional posture.

"It is very difficult for us to take a stand," Jirudi said, with many war-weary Syrians seeming to share the government's reluctance.

Sitting with his wife in Damascus' famous Rawda cafe, 42-year-old actor Ahmad Malas said he hoped to "be rid of both the Iranian and Israeli regimes, as they are both dictatorial systems (and) Syrian people have been paying the price for their actions".

However, he added, "I have an emotional connection with the Iranian people, and with the Palestinian people, as their cause has been ours for a long time".

Iran's support for Assad following his violent repression of peaceful protests in 2011 created strong animosity towards Tehran among many Syrians.

Thousands of Iranians left Syria after the fall of Assad, and Tehran's embassy was subjected to looting and vandalism.

The walls surrounding the embassy in Damascus still bear the spray-painted slogans "curse Iran" and "free Iran".

Since becoming Syria's interim president, former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has repeatedly criticised Iran's role in his country during the civil war, stating that restoring relations with Tehran will require respect for Syria's "sovereignty" and "non-interference" in its affairs.

Iran has said it is "not in a hurry" to establish ties with the new Syrian authorities.

Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes on Syria since Assad's fall, saying it aimed to stop advanced weapons from reaching the new rulers, whom it considers jihadists.

Israeli troops in the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Syria and the Golan Heights have also regularly carried out ground incursions, condemned by Damascus.

Syria admitted to holding indirect talks with Israel seeking de-escalation, and the United States has called for it to normalise ties with its southern neighbour.

Amid the breaches of Syria's airspace, at least one civilian has been killed and several others injured by fallen debris from intercepted projectiles.

The Syrian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the war.

"Damascus adheres to a policy of neutrality... It tries to completely distance itself from the war and any mention of it, because Syria has no interest in getting involved," said Bassam al-Suleiman, a political analyst close to the new authorities.

As the government tries to kickstart post-war economic recovery and reconstruction, Syria's primary battle is "internal", according to Suleiman.

He added that while "both Israel and Iran are a source of danger, we have no stake in this war", which he said Syria should "avoid".

From a rooftop nightclub overlooking Damascus, a 27-year-old doctor who gave her name as Sarah watched the flash of missiles in the sky.

"We try to forget the atmosphere of war by spending time here with friends," she said.

"However, I still fear that some effects of the war will reach us."

Barcelona (AFP) – Barcelona's UNESCO-listed Casa Batllo, a modernist architectural masterpiece by Sagrada Familia designer Antoni Gaudi, unveiled a multimillion-euro restoration Thursday that brings its rear facade and courtyard back to life.

Previous refurbishments, changes of owner and the turbulent period marked by Spain's 1936-1939 civil war had taken their toll on the unique building completed in 1906.

A team of architects, historians and artisans spent more than a year repairing the bright mosaics and restoring the original cream-coloured hue to the blackened curvy balcony bars.

The result is "the most similar to 1906 that we have been able to achieve with today's technology", Xavier Villanueva, the chief architect and official in charge of the works, told AFP.

In the courtyard, the pergola replicates a parabola shape and more than 85,000 pieces make up the paving, "hand made one by one, as it was originally", Villanueva said.

The painstaking task meant the team "carried out a lot of analyses in several university laboratories, many prospections, we have lots of documentary information", he said.

The restoration cost 3.5 million euros ($4 million), according to Casa Batllo, which is in a fashionable neighbourhood of Barcelona frequented by the city's bourgeoisie and wealthy industrialists in the early 20th century.

A UNESCO-listed site since 2005, Casa Batllo welcomed 1.9 million visitors last year, making it one of the most popular attractions in a city known as a global tourism magnet.

Belgrade (AFP) – Life in 1990s former Yugoslavia was a nightmare of war, economic collapse and an all-powerful mafia.

But a new exhibition in Belgrade hopes plunging visitors back into this labyrinth of trauma and suffering may actually help the Balkans find a way to escape its troubled past.

The show tells how a once-prosperous country was ripped apart by rampant nationalism and devastating violence as much of the rest of Europe basked in post-Cold War optimism and the beginning of the digital revolution.

"I feel like crying," Vesna Latinovic, a 63-year-old from Belgrade told AFP as she toured the exhibition, visibly shaken.

"Labyrinth of the Nineties" opens with a video collage of popular television intros and music videos, followed by a speech from Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who ended his days in prison being tried for war crimes.

Deeper into the maze, as the multi-ethnic state begins to crumble, nationalist street signs replace socialist ones, inflammatory newspaper headlines hang from walls, and infamous Serbian warlord Arkan even croons an Elvis tune on late-night TV.

"We've forgotten so much -- how intense and dramatic it was, how deeply human lives were affected, and how many were tragically cut short," visitor Latinovic said.

At least 130,000 were killed -- with 11,000 still missing -- as Yugoslavia spiralled into the worst war in Europe since 1945. Millions more were displaced as neighbour turned on neighbour.

The exhibition features haunting images of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo under siege, civilians under sniper fire, refugees and concentration camps.

Those of strikes, worthless, hyper-inflated banknotes and descriptions of the rise of a new class of tycoons and oligarchs reveal a society imploding.

The labyrinth in the show is meant to be a "powerful metaphor to show that we entered the maze of the 1990s and we still haven't found the way out," said historian Dubravka Stojanovic, who co-curated the show.

At the labyrinth's heart is 1995 -- a year when over 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica, and 200,000 Serbs were displaced from Croatia in the fall of the Republic of Serbian Krajina.

That year the Schengen Agreement removed borders within the European Union, but at the same time new borders were being thrown up between the former Yugoslav republics.

"It was all completely absurd... The wars only brought suffering to innocents, while those responsible were never truly held accountable," said a visitor called Cedomir, 39, as he left the exhibition.

The curators say all sides involved in the wars -- including EU members Croatia and Slovenia -- deny, downplay or try to forget the crimes.

The show is all about stopping sources and testimonies from fading into oblivion, Stojanovic said.

"In every country, we see the same phenomenon -- no one speaks of their own responsibility, only the guilt of others. This makes true reconciliation impossible, let alone the building of trust in the region," she added.

"But every labyrinth must have an exit," the historian said.

"And this exhibition aims to help people search for and find that way out."

That's why the labyrinth includes a room dedicated to heroes -- those who refused to participate in the war -- and a room honouring independent media and anti-war activists.

Those heroes include Bosnian Serb Srdan Aleksic who died after being beaten into a coma after he stepped in to defend a Muslim neighbour, and Nedjeljko "Neđo" Galic, a Bosnian Croat, who with his wife managed to get some 1,000 Muslims and Serbs out of Croatian concentration camps near Mostar.

It also features moments of joy amid darkness, like swimming beneath a bombed bridge or ravers partying in a shattered country.

Hopeful graffiti that appeared on a wartime wall in Zagreb is also reproduced, "Love will save us."

"Regardless of religion, nationality or political affiliation, love knows no borders," Sofia, a visitor from Skopje in North Macedonia wrote in the exhibition's guestbook.

"Labyrinth of the Nineties" is set to be made into a permanent exhibition in Belgrade. It has already been shown in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and is also open in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, with plans for shows in Croatia and Slovenia in the future.

Hanoi (AFP) – Since the United States accused Vietnam of being a hub for counterfeit goods, Tran Le Chi has found it increasingly hard to track down her favourite fake Chanel T-shirts, Gucci sunglasses and Louis Vuitton handbags.

As Vietnam's government tries to head off President Donald Trump's threatened 46 percent tariff, it has launched a crackdown on fake products -- in part to show responsiveness to US concerns.

Now there are streets filled with shuttered shops in Hanoi and rows of closed stalls at Saigon Square shopping mall, a major clothing market in Ho Chi Minh City -- the kind of places Chi used to go to buy her latest gear.

"The clothes help me look trendy," Chi told AFP. "Why would I care if they are fake or not?"

Chi -- a betting agent for an illegal game known as lo-de, where punters predict the last two lotto numbers of the standard daily draw -- said she had never paid more than $40 per "designer" item.

"Only the super-rich people can afford the real ones," she added. "They're not for people like us."

Communist-run Vietnam is a manufacturing powerhouse that produces clothing and footwear for international brands, with the United States its number-one export market in the first five months of 2025.

But it also has a thriving market for counterfeit goods.

In a report published by the US Trade Representative in January, Saigon Square shopping mall was flagged as a major market for the sale of fake luxury items including handbags, wallets, jewellery and watches.

The report noted government efforts to stamp out the trade, but said "low penalties have had little deterrent effect" and "counterfeit products remain rampant".

Shop owner Hoa, a pseudonym to protect her identity, said almost all of the fake Nike, Lacoste and North Face products she sells in her shop in Hanoi's old quarter are from China -- but tagged with a "Made in Vietnam" label to make them seem authentic.

She insists that all her customers know what they're getting.

"My clients are those who cannot afford authentic products," Hoa said. "I've never cheated anyone."

Hanoi and Washington are in the thick of trade talks, with Vietnam doing everything it can to avoid the crushing 46 percent tariff that could come into force in early July.

Vietnam's trade ministry ordered authorities in April to tighten control over the origin of goods after the Trump administration accused the country of facilitating Chinese exports to the United States and allowing Beijing to get around tariffs.

The public security ministry also said there would be a three-month-long crackdown -- until mid-August -- on counterfeit goods.

Nguyen Thanh Nam, deputy head of the agency for domestic market surveillance and development, said last week that in the first five months of the year, more than 7,000 cases of counterfeit products worth more than $8 million had been discovered.

He added that 1,000 fake Rolex watches had been seized from Saigon Square shopping mall.

Mounds of vitamins, cosmetics and sweets -- seemingly also counterfeits -- have appeared at waste grounds outside cities including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang, while fake electronics including Marshall speakers and smartwatches have been confiscated.

Police have not specified the origin of the goods, but Vietnam was Southeast Asia's biggest buyer of Chinese products in 2024, with a bill of $161.9 billion.

Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said that although there were other aims of the drive, including improving Vietnam's business environment and formalising the retail sector, "the campaign plays a role in Vietnam's strategy to appease the US".

"The effort partly reflects Vietnam's intent to show responsiveness to US concerns," he said.

But for Hoa, her livelihood is on the line. Her shop has been closed for almost two weeks and she has no idea how to restart the business.

"I have sold these sorts of clothes for a decade and experienced no problem at all. Now they crack down on us, it's hard to figure out how I continue," she said.

Sarajevo (AFP) – It took years for Zehra Murguz to be able to testify about what happened to her and other Muslim women in the "rape camps" run by Serb forces during the war in Bosnia.

One of the awful memories that drove her to give evidence was of seeing a girl of 12 "with a doll in her arms" dragged into one of them.

Murguz felt she was also speaking "in the name of all the others, of that girl of 12 who will never talk... who was never found".

The horror began for her in the summer of 1992 when Serb forces took the mountain town of Foca and Murguz was taken to the Partizan gym, one of several notorious rape camps the Serbs ran.

For months dozens of Muslim women and girls were gang raped and forced into sexual slavery there. Others were sold or killed.

At least 20,000 people suffered sexual violence across Bosnia as Yugoslavia collapsed into the worst war Europe had then seen since 1945.

Most victims were Bosnian Muslims, but Serbs and Croat women also suffered.

In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia became the first court in Europe to recognise rape as a crime against humanity in an historic verdict against three Bosnian Serb army officers from Foca.

While a handful of survivors driven by a thirst for justice continue to collect thousands of testimonies, many remain locked in silence more than three decades on.

Murguz, 61, began her judicial journey when she returned to Bosnia in 2011 -- after years living in exile in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia -- to bring her neighbour to book for raping her during the war.

"If I don't speak, it will be as if the crime never happened," she told herself. He was still living in Foca and "wasn't hiding", she said.

He was arrested and tried in the local court in 2012.

Going there was "like going back to 1992", to the "agony" of that time, Murguz recalled. "I came face to face with him, we looked each other in the eye, and justice won out," she said.

The man was jailed for 14 years, a "light sentence", said Murguz "for the murder of three people and a rape".

But the conviction at last "stamped him with his true identity -- war criminal", she told AFP from a sewing workshop in Sarajevo run by the Victims of the War Foca 1992-1995 group.

Around her other survivors wove fabric together, a form of collective therapy.

"To this day, only 18 verdicts have been delivered for crimes of sexual violence committed in Foca," said the group's president, Midheta Kaloper, 52.

"Three trials are ongoing. A lot of time has passed, and witnesses are exhausted."

She herself was a victim of "an unspeakable, inexplicable crime" in Gorazde, the "worst torture a girl can endure", she said.

She still hopes the suspect will be tried in Bosnia, not in Serbia where he now lives.

But Kaloper warned that things have "stagnated" over the last five years, with 258 cases involving 2,046 suspects still needing to be judged, according to figures from the High Council of Magistrates.

Bosnian judges had tried 773 war crime cases by the end of last year -- over a quarter involving sexual violence -- according to the OSCE monitoring mission.

It said there had been "significant delays" in hundreds of others where the suspects have yet to be identified.

"What kills us most is the excessive length of these proceedings," said Kaloper.

"We have been fighting for 30 years, and our only real success has been obtaining the law on civilian war victims," under which survivors can be given a pension worth about $400 a month, she said.

However, the law only covers the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia and those living there, and not those living in the self-governing Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the small mixed Brcko District in the northeast, which have different judicial systems.

Around 1,000 survivors have obtained war victim status in the Muslim-Croat federation and some 100 more in the RS and Brcko, said Ajna Mahmic, of the Swiss legal NGO Trial International.

Rape, she said, still carries a particular stigma. "Unfortunately, as a society we still put the blame and shame on the victims rather than the perpetrators.

"Many of the survivors do not feel secure," Mahmic told AFP. "Some of the perpetrators are still living freely and some are working in public institutions," some in positions of authority.

Not to mention the continued glorification "of war criminals (in the Balkans) and the minimisation of the suffering we have endured", Kaloper added.

Nearly half of ongoing cases are held up because the accused are abroad, an OSCE report said in January.

Another "worrying trend is the widespread failure of courts to grant victims compensation" in criminal cases, the OSCE added.

While witnesses could testify anonymously in The Hague, there is nothing to protect their identity in civil compensation proceedings in Bosnia.

"Even today it is very difficult for victims to speak," said Bakira Hasecic, 71, head of the Women Victims of War group, and they keep the "weight of this tragedy in their hearts".

Many follow what their former torturers are up to on social networks.

It is an emotional "timebomb that can explode at any moment and drives some to call us", she said.

Though over 30 years have passed, 15 more victims stepped forward needing to talk in the last few months alone, Hasecic said.

Kabul (AFP) – Aynullah Rahimi's family has for decades tended the old cemetery in Kabul reserved for non-Afghans, but since the country's latest war ended and foreigners left in droves, he says few now enter the oasis of quiet in the capital.

Dating back to the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th century, the small plot of land in the city centre has interred and memorialised foreign fighters, explorers and devotees of Afghanistan who have died in the country over some 180 years.

In the two decades of war between Western forces and the Taliban that ended in 2021 with the latter's victory, there were a handful of burials and memorials attended by ambassadors and dignitaries at the British Cemetery.

But these days, Rahimi quietly tends to the garden of roses and apricot trees, the calls of caged partridges louder than the rumbling traffic beyond the high stone wall that secludes the cemetery.

"Before the Taliban came to power, many foreigners used to come here to visit every week," he told AFP.

"No one visits here much now, only sometimes a few tourists," he said.

The paint on the walls -- hung with commemorative plaques for the dead of NATO countries who fought the Taliban, as well as journalists who covered the conflict -- has chipped and weathered since the Taliban takeover in 2021, when Western embassies emptied.

Where Kabul was once teeming with Western soldiers, diplomats, journalists and humanitarians, their presence has thinned dramatically.

Adventurers from around the world are increasingly travelling to the country, despite lingering security risks and Taliban-imposed restrictions primarily targeting Afghan women -- including a general ban on women entering Kabul's parks.

For those who know what's behind the wall marked only by a small sign reading "British Cemetery", they can pause in the shade in one of the few green spaces in the city fully open to foreign women.

"This is a historical place," Rahimi said, noting he hasn't had interference by the Taliban authorities.

Those whose countrymen are memorialised there are welcome, he added -- "it's their graveyard".

The last time the cemetery was full of the living, Rahimi said, was the burial of the latest person to be interred there -- Winifred Zoe Ritchie, who died in 2019 at the age of 99.

Ritchie's family brought her body from the United States to Afghanistan to be laid to rest next to her husband, Dwight, who was killed in a car crash in southern Afghanistan 40 years earlier.

The Ritchies had worked and lived in Afghanistan, one of their sons later following in their footsteps -- cementing the family's ties to a country far from their homeland.

The couple's daughter, Joanna Ginter, has memories of her family wandering through markets, flying kites and raising pigeons in Kabul years before the city was engulfed by the first of many conflicts that wracked the country for 40 years.

Their mother's burial "was the first time (we visited) since we were there for my dad's funeral", Ginter told AFP, having travelled back to Kabul with relatives.

"I was very happy to get to go there, even though it was for a funeral."

Her mother's grave marker stands out in light marble among the headstones, wobbly letters next to a long cross -- a rare sight in Afghanistan.

Older gravestones of some of the more than 150 people buried there bear the scars of conflict, names pockmarked into near unrecognisability by weapon fire that breached the wall.

Other than thieves who broke through a fence where the cemetery backs onto a hill dotted with Muslim graves -- "our graveyard", Rahimi calls it -- the caretaker says he is left mostly alone to his watch.

The 56-year-old grew up helping his uncle who raised him tend to the cemetery, taking over its care from his cousin who fled to Britain during the chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces as the Taliban marched into Kabul.

He had in turn taken up the post from his father, who guarded the cemetery and dug some of its graves for around 30 years.

"They also told me to go to England with them, but I refused and said I would stay here, and I have been here ever since," Rahimi said, certain one of his sons would follow in his footsteps.

El Dorado (Venezuela) (AFP) – In the Venezuelan mining community of El Dorado, the majority of residents carry around gold instead of cards or cash to pay for groceries.

They live in a town named after the mythical City of Gold and untold riches -- but most of them are poor.

Merchants use scales to carefully weigh the flecks people guard in plastic pill bottles or wrapped in pieces of paper, and market goods are priced in weight of gold.

For 0.02 grams, you can get a small packet of maize meal, for one gram a pre-packaged bag of groceries that includes flour, pasta, oil, margarine, ketchup and milk powder.

A gram of gold can purchase between $85 and $100 worth of goods, but takes hours of back-breaking work to amass. If you're in luck.

"Gold is a blessing given to us so we can buy what we want, but you have to work hard," 48-year-old Jose Tobias Tranquini told AFP in the town of 5,000 residents mostly employed in mining -- legal and illegal.

"One day at the mine you might find nothing; there are lucky people who have gotten up to a kilo (2.2 pounds), but... I haven't had that kind of blessing. I've only gotten a little bit," said Tranquini.

El Dorado's residents have limited access to banking services.

They could sell their gold at one of the dozens of dealers that dot the streets, but most prefer not to. Gold -- unlike the battered Venezuelan currency that has lost 50 percent of its value this year -- does not depreciate.

El Dorado arose as a military fort as Britain and Venezuela squared off in 1895 over the mineral- and oil-rich region of Essequibo now at the center of an increasingly heated territorial dispute with Guyana, which has administered it for decades.

The oldest inhabitants of the town remember that when it rained, particles of gold emerged from the town's clay streets.

Nowadays, the streets are tarred, though potholed, and the population rely for transport mainly on motorcycles that zoom noisily to and fro.

Hilda Carrero, a 73-year-old merchant, arrived in Eldorado 50 years go in the midst of a gold rush. The town, she recalls, was just "jungle and snakes... It was ugly."

Carrero sells cans of water for 0.03 grams of gold apiece -- about $1.50 -- but business, like mining hauls, is erratic. Some days she sells nothing.

"If I don't have gold I have no life," Carrero sighed.

It can be hard to make a living in a place where abundant reserves of gold, diamonds, iron, bauxite, quartz and coltan have attracted organized crime and guerrilla groups that mine illegally, and sow violence.

Extortion of small business owners is rife, and 217 people were killed in the four years to 2020 in clashes between rival criminal gangs.

Environmentalists also denounce an "ecocide" in the heavily-exploited area, and mine collapses have claimed dozens of lives.

Around El Dorado, there are numerous camps processing the gold-laden sand that miners dig up daily.

In tall sheds with zinc roofs, mountains of sand are milled in machines that work with modified car engines, then washed in water and toxic mercury to separate the gold from other metals.

Tiny particles almost imperceptible to the naked eye are trapped in a green mat which is shaken out to collect them.

The granules are finally heated with a blowtorch to remove impurities before the gold can be traded or sold.

It is hard work, and hazardous.

"The danger of this is the smoke" produced by the mercury burning off, a mill owner explained while smoking a cigarette.

A family of five working at a mine visited by AFP spent four hours that day processing a ton of sand.

For their efforts: one gram of gold.

"We'll use it to buy food and whatever is needed at the mill," a worker who asked not to be named told AFP as he cupped a tiny grain of gold in coarse hands.

It was a good day.

Islamabad (AFP) – Since seeing thousands of comments justifying the recent murder of a teenage TikTok star in Pakistan, Sunaina Bukhari is considering abandoning her 88,000 followers.

"In my family, it wasn't an accepted profession at all, but I'd managed to convince them, and even ended up setting up my own business," she said.

Then last week, Sana Yousaf was shot dead outside her house in the capital Islamabad by a man whose advances she had repeatedly rejected, police said.

News of the murder led to an outpouring of comments under her final post -- her 17th birthday celebration where she blew out the candles on a cake.

In between condolence messages, some blamed her for her own death: "You reap what you sow" or "it's deserved, she was tarnishing Islam".

Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media, where she shared her favourite cafes, skincare products and traditional shalwar kameez outfits.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels. On it, women have found both audience and income, rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.

But as TikTok's views have surged, so have efforts to police the platform.

Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls "immoral behaviour", amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.

TikTok has pledged to better moderate content and blocked millions of videos that do not meet its community guidelines as well as at the request of Pakistan authorities.

After Yousaf's murder, Bukhari, 28, said her family no longer backs her involvement in the industry.

"I'm the first influencer in my family, and maybe the last," she told AFP.

Only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.

"Friends and family often discourage them from using social media for fear of being judged," said a statement from the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF).

In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her honour.

In October, police in Karachi, in the south, announced the arrest of a man who had killed four women relatives over "indecent" TikTok videos.

These murders each revive memories of Qandeel Baloch, dubbed Pakistan's Kim Kardashian and one of the country's first breakout social media stars whose videos shot her to fame.

After years in the spotlight, she was suffocated by her brother.

Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan, according to the country's Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting men are not uncommon.

"This isn't one crazy man, this is a culture," said Kanwal Ahmed, who leads a closed Facebook group of 300,000 women to share advice.

"Every woman in Pakistan knows this fear. Whether she's on TikTok or has a private Instagram with 50 followers, men show up. In her DMs. In her comments. On her street," she wrote in a post.

"The misogyny and the patriarchy that is prevalent in this society is reflected on the online spaces," he added.

A 22-year-old man was arrested over Yousaf's murder and is due to appear in court next week.

At a vigil in the capital last week, around 80 men and women gathered, holding placards that read "no means no".

"Social media has given us a voice, but the opposing voices are louder," said Hira, a young woman who joined the gathering.

The capital's police chief, Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi, used a press conference to send a "clear message" to the public.

"If our sisters or daughters want to become influencers, professionally or as amateurs, we must encourage them," he said.

Kenya – A new initiative is using AI-powered drones to identify and eliminate mosquito breeding grounds in Ghana and Sierra Leone, in a bid to prevent malaria outbreaks.

At dawn in Busia County, western Kenya, 10-year-old Angela Wanjiru lies motionless on a wooden bench in front of a rural dispensary. Her fever is high, and her mother anxiously fans her with a creased piece of cardboard. This is Angela's third malaria attack in three months, a deadly cycle that is well known to families in this mosquito-infested region.

Kenya sees more than 5 million malaria cases per year – and 12,000 deaths from the disease. Malaria continues to be one of the biggest obstacles to child survival and economic productivity in sub-Saharan Africa.

But in some parts of the region, a quiet revolution is in the air – quite literally.

In Ghana and Sierra Leone, drone technology is being used to identify and eliminate mosquito breeding grounds before outbreaks erupt.

These drones, powered by artificial intelligence-enabled cameras, patrol fields, wetlands and riverbanks. They scan for standing water where mosquitoes lay eggs.

When an infestation location is found, the drones deposit larvicide at the infestation point before the insects even hatch.

This initiative, introduced by governments and local partners with support from Japanese start-up SORA Technology, is already showing good results.

SORA Technology co-founder and CEO Yosuke Kaneko says the idea came out of his own experiences in Africa. "I was shocked at how many children still die from malaria, which can be prevented and cured. We thought that if we could add AI and aerial monitoring to the mix, we could end the cycle."

He added: "Drones allow us to access areas that health personnel often have difficulty reaching in a timely manner, safely and with accuracy that does make a real difference."

Kaneko says his team works in close proximity with ministries of health, community leadership and local drone pilots. "The technology only works if the people it's supposed to help trust it. That's why training locals and building capacity in-country is at the core of what we do."

Dr. Margaret Njeri, an epidemiologist in Nairobi, sees this initiative as a breakthrough. "We've relied on bed nets and medication for decades. Those are still important, but they're not enough. This kind technology is what we've been seeking."

Africa accounts for more than 90 percent of global malaria deaths, with young children the most vulnerable. Despite progress in reducing transmission over the past two decades, rising resistance to drugs and insecticides is forcing a rethink in strategy.

Malaria policy advisor Dr. Peter Okeke, who is based in Abuja, believes the drone model can be replicated across the African continent. "It's smart prevention – cheaper than treatment, more humane than reacting to outbreaks and, ultimately, more sustainable."

Faith Atieno, a community health volunteer in Homa Bay County, western Kenya, has witnessed the devastating impact of malaria on children in her community – like Angela.

"We've heard how valuable these drones are proving in other African countries. If we had them here, I am sure that we could save many lives," she says. "It's not just about technology. It's about giving our children a better chance."

Baltimore (AFP) – Carrying a bag filled with the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, Adam Trionfo roams the brick-lined streets of one of America's oldest port cities, Baltimore.

The 40-year-old and his small team visit neighborhoods considered "hot spots" for drug trafficking to hand out the precious antidote, sold under the brand name Narcan.

The easy-to-use nasal spray has become a key tool in the fight against the deadly US opioid crisis, claiming 750,000 lives between the late 1990s and 2022.

"Just over the past week, we distributed 200 Narcan kits," Trionfo, who oversees an addiction assistance program with the local branch of Catholic Charities, told AFP.

On their route, the team spots a man sprawled out amid a pile of rubbish in the corner of a stairwell. They hand him a box of Narcan and a brochure about their organization.

The man takes it with one hand, as he awkwardly hides a syringe behind his back.

Their last Narcan kit goes to another man, legs covered in brown scars, who is waiting near a dilapidated building.

These scenes are not uncommon in this East Coast city, which is located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Washington and is renowned for endemic crime.

Baltimore was the setting of the hit television series "The Wire" in the early 2000s, depicting its burgeoning drug scene from a variety of angles.

And last year, the New York Times dubbed the city the "American overdose capital."

Between 2018 and 2022, the drug-related mortality rate was nearly twice as high as in any other major American city. The leading killer: fentanyl.

Since the height of the opioid crisis in 2021, the outlook has improved in much of the country, including in Baltimore.

The number of fatal overdoses in the city plummeted by 35 percent last year, to 680 down from 1,043 in 2023.

The city's proactive policies, coupled with preventative work done by Catholic charities in Baltimore's communities have helped make a dent in the problem.

"We've had tremendous efforts throughout the city to get people into treatment, and then we've also had tremendous efforts in getting Naloxone out there," said Michael Fingerhood, head of addiction medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Distributed broadly for about a decade, Narcan has worked like a "fire extinguisher," Fingerhood said.

In Baltimore, Narcan is now available everywhere: pharmacies, vending machines throughout the city, even in libraries.

The drop in mortality in Baltimore is also linked to the composition of the fentanyl being sold there, Fingerhood said.

"The drug supply has less potent fentanyl and has additives that are less likely to cause overdose."

Awareness of the risks associated with the powerful synthetic opioid has also grown among users, pushing them to be more "cautious," said Bakari Atiba, community engagement director at Charm City Care Connection.

The nonprofit assists addicts in Baltimore -- known as Charm City -- and recently received funding from a restitution program fueled by lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

"I'm not saying people are going to stop using," Atiba said. "That's not even our goal."

"It's about meeting people where they are, making sure they're safe, making sure they're supported, and making sure they have pathways to recovery if they want it."

Karimabad, Pakistan (Pakistan) (AFP) – In a sawdust-filled workshop nestled in the Karakoram Mountains, a team of women carpenters chisel away at cabinets -- and forge an unlikely career for themselves in Pakistan.

Women make up just a fraction of Pakistan's formal workforce. But in a collection of villages sprinkled along the old Silk Road between China and Afghanistan, a group of women-led businesses is defying expectations.

"We have 22 employees and have trained around 100 women," said Bibi Amina, who launched her carpentry workshop in 2008 at the age of 30.

Hunza Valley's population of around 50,000, spread across mountains abounding with apricot, cherry, walnut and mulberry orchards, follow the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam.

Ismailis are led by the Aga Khan, a hereditary position held by a family with Pakistani roots now living in Europe.

As a result, attitudes have shifted, and women like Amina are taking expanded roles.

"People thought women were there to wash dishes and do laundry," Amina said of the generation before her.

Trained by the Aga Khan Foundation to help renovate the ancient Altit Fort, Amina later used her skills to start her own business. Her carpenters are currently at work on a commission from a luxury hotel.

Only 23 percent of the women in Pakistan were officially part of the labour force as of 2024, according to data from the World Bank.

In rural areas, women rarely take on formal employment but often toil in the fields to support the family's farming income.

In a Gallup poll published last year, a third of women respondents said their father or husband forbade them from taking a job, while 43.5 percent said they had given up work to devote themselves to domestic tasks.

Cafe owner Lal Shehzadi spearheaded women's restaurant entrepreneurship in Hunza.

She opened her cafe at the top of a winding high street to supplement her husband's small army pension.

Sixteen years later, her simple set-up overlooking the valley has become a popular night-time tourist attraction. She serves visitors traditional cuisine, including yak meat, apricot oil and rich mountain cheese.

"At the start, I used to work alone," she said. "Now, 11 people work here and most of them are women. And my children are also working here."

Following in Shehzadi's footsteps, Safina quit her job to start her own restaurant around a decade ago.

"No one wanted to help me," she said. Eventually, she convinced family members to sell two cows and a few goats for the money she needed to launch her business.

Now, she earns the equivalent of around $170 a month, more than 15 times her previous income.

The socio-economic progress of women in Hunza compared to other rural areas of Pakistan has been driven by three factors, according to Sultan Madan, the head of the Karakoram Area Development Organisation and a local historian.

"The main reason is the very high literacy rate," he told AFP, largely crediting the Aga Khan Foundation for funding training programmes for women.

"Secondly, agriculture was the backbone of the economy in the region, but in Hunza the landholding was meagre and that was why women had to work in other sectors."

Women's increased economic participation has spilled into other areas of life, like sports fields.

"Every village in the valley has a women's soccer team: Gojal, Gulmit, Passu, Khyber, Shimsal," said Nadia Shams, 17.

On a synthetic pitch, she trains with her teammates in jogging pants or shorts, forbidden elsewhere by Pakistan's dress code.

Here, one name is on everyone's lips: Malika-e-Noor, the former vice-captain of the national team who scored the winning penalty against the Maldives in the 2010 South Asian Women's Football Championship.

Fahima Qayyum was six years old when she witnessed the killer kick.

Today, after several international matches, she is recruiting the next generation.

"As a girl, I stress to others the importance of playing, as sport is very good for health," she told AFP.

"If they play well, they can also get scholarships."

La Paz (AFP) – Waiting in line for hours, often in vain, for basics such as cooking oil has become a way of life in Bolivia, where anger over shortages and skyrocketing prices has exploded into violence.

Making matters worse: a campaign of roadblocks to protest the crisis has blocked major routes used for the delivery of food and medicine, fueling the scarcity.

"We never thought this situation would reach such an extreme, where we would have to stand in line for food or toilet paper," Rocio Perez, a 65-year-old pensioner told AFP at her home in La Paz.

She lives with her children and grandchildren, and the family has taken to rationing what they eat.

"We are staring into the abyss," said Perez.

At a nearby warehouse selling state-subsidized groceries, 40-year-old Sonia, who did not want to give her surname, queued in extreme cold from 5 am for cooking oil, only to leave empty-handed when stocks ran out some two hours later.

Only those who arrived at 4 am were in luck.

"I am a single mother, I have to work to support my six children... and on top of that, come and stand in this line," Sonia told AFP, clearly angry.

"I don't sleep well anymore."

Other irate customers banged on the store's metal doors and shouted at the state employees inside.

"There's no rice, no sugar, no eggs, there's nothing left," exclaimed 30-year-old Gisela Vargas, who also left with nothing.

Bolivia, home to 12 million people and an Indigenous majority, is one of the poorest countries in South America despite sitting on vast mineral resources such as gas and lithium.

In 2023, state oil company YPFB said Bolivia was running out of natural gas -- a crucial export product -- due to a lack of investment in new exploration.

A dramatic drop in gas exports led foreign currency reserves to plummet, making Bolivia unable to import sufficient fuel for its needs.

Inflation in May was 18.4 percent year-on-year, the highest in nearly two decades, and the local currency, the Boliviano, continues to lose value.

The crisis, which many Bolivians blame on President Luis Arce, has been compounded by a showdown between Arce and ex-leader Evo Morales, who retains a strong support base, especially among Indigenous people.

Morales supporters have been blockading roads since June 2.

At least four officers and one protester have been killed in clashes just weeks before elections in which Morales wants to seek a fourth term despite a two-term constitutional limit.

A survey by the Panterra consultancy in March found 89 percent of Bolivians want the country to take a "very different direction," with the rising cost of living by far the main concern.

"In terms of purchasing power, wages are deteriorating very strongly" with rising inflation, said economist Jose Luis Evia, a former member of the board of the Central Bank of Bolivia.

Francisca Flores, a 69-year-old street vendor, said she has had to cut back on chicken, formerly an affordable source of protein, after the price per kilogram doubled in just a few months.

She now eats omelets and other egg-based dishes instead.

"I feel helpless," Flores told AFP at La Garita de Lima, a busy commercial area of La Paz where hundreds of people formed a long queue as a truck started unloading chickens for sale.

"I go out with my little money... and if I can't buy anything, well, I just go home and endure it," she said.

Medicines, too, have become scarcer and more expensive.

Bolivia saw what has been described as a short-lived "economic miracle" under the 2006-2019 presidency of Morales, with Arce as his economy minister.

Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president, nationalized hydrocarbons and invested the income in infrastructure and social programs.

The country experienced more than 4 percent annual growth while poverty rates tumbled from 60 percent to 37 percent, according to official figures at the time.

But critics say Morales' failure to implement structural economic reforms meant the growth was unsustainable.

Evia believes the resultant social unrest could be the undoing of the left, which has governed Bolivia for nearly two decades, in the August elections.

"There is growing consensus for change," he said.

Havana (AFP) – It took a steep hike in mobile internet tariffs to unleash a rebellion among Cuban students on a scale unseen since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.

The new pricing structure, which came into effect on May 30, punished people who exceeded their meager monthly data limit of six gigabytes with steep fees.

On top of that, it made rates cheaper to top up in dollars than in Cuba's own currency, the peso.

State telecommunications company Etecsa said the increases were necessary to fund investments in the mobile network.

But it was also seen as a ploy by the cash-strapped communist government to bring in much-needed foreign currency.

Students in particular reacted angrily to the measure, which not only makes it harder for them to stay connected, but deepens the chasm on the island between dollar-toting haves and peso-using have-nots.

In rare scenes throughout the one-party state, students at several universities organized a boycott of classes, and students' unions issued statements rejecting the reform.

Anxious to avoid a repeat of the protests that rocked the island in July 2021, when thousands of people demonstrated over shortages of basic goods, the government has taken a conciliatory approach.

The Havana students' union this week announced the creation of a discussion group with students, teaching staff from a dozen university faculties in Havana, and Etecsa's representatives.

But on social media, students say they have come under pressure from security forces to fall in line.

In a video shared on social media, which AFP was unable to verify, a medical student claims she was threatened by a state security agent on campus with being taken to "an official place where you won't be able to use your phone."

The protests have ballooned into a wider mobilization over the subtle dollarization of the Cuban economy.

Students at the University of Holguin's law faculty in eastern Cuba issued a statement denouncing the new mobile tariffs as "elitist and classist" and said the growing shift towards dollars was an affront to the principle of equal rights.

In another viral video, a medical student at the University of Havana warned that the currency of the United States was becoming the country's "flagship currency."

For opposition activist Manuel Cuesta Morua, the protests mark a return to the kind of activism last seen on campuses in the 1950s, which forged the revolutionary careers of Castro and others.

Today's students are spearheading "a revolution within the revolution," Cuesta Morua said, adding that their tirades against inequality marked a return to the "original discourse of a revolution that became militarized and more conservative" over time.

The row over the internet fees comes amid the emergence of a two-speed society on the communist island, which is mired in its worst economic crisis in 30 years.

Inflation rose by 190 percent between 2018 and 2023, according to official figures, eroding the value of the peso against the dollar.

Food, fuel and medicine are all in short supply.

Cubans who receive dollar remittances from relatives abroad fare better, with well-stocked dollar payment grocery stores and gas stations only too happy to serve them.

In January, the government announced a partial dollarization of the economy, claiming it wanted to get its hands on some of the greenbacks.

But mobile top-ups in dollars were "the last straw" for many, according to Tamarys Bahamonde, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington.

In a joint manifesto, students from various faculties in Havana made it clear they were not "opposed to the government nor the revolution but to specific policies that betray its (egalitarian) ideal."

For Bahamonde, the crisis underscores the widening gulf between Cuba's decision-makers and its citizens.

To win over the students, Etecsa last week announced that they would be allowed two monthly top-ups at the basic rate of 360 pesos ($3), compared with one for the rest of the population.

But the students rejected the offer, saying they wanted everyone to benefit.

For activist Cuesta Morua, their reaction was proof that young Cubans, rather than the government, have become the voice of the people.

"It is the students... who are representing the country's concerns."

Cairo (AFP) – After nearly a century in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, King Tutankhamun's iconic gold mask and remaining treasures are set to move to the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids.

Visitors have just days left to see the boy king's world-famous gold funerary mask before it joins more than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb at the GEM, a $1-billion megaproject opening on July 3.

"Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here in Tahrir," said museum director Ali Abdel Halim.

"All are set to be moved soon," he told AFP, without confirming a specific date for the transfer.

The government has yet to officially announce when or how the last artefacts will be relocated.

Still on display are the innermost gold coffin, a gilded coffin, a gold dagger, cosmetic box, miniature coffins, royal diadem and pectorals.

Tutankhamun's treasures, registered at the Egyptian Museum on Cairo's Tahrir square in 1934, have long been its crown jewels.

But the neoclassical building -- with faded cases, no climate control and ageing infrastructure -- now contrasts with the high-tech GEM.

Once open, the GEM is believed to be the largest in the world devoted to a single civilisation, housing more than 100,000 artefacts -- with over half on public display.

In a dedicated wing, most of King Tut's treasures will be exhibited together for the first time in history since British archeologist Howard Carter discovered the young pharaoh's intact tomb in 1922.

His mummy will remain in its original resting place in Luxor's Valley of the Kings as it is "a vital part of the archeological site", Egyptian officials have said.

A virtual replica, however, will be displayed at the GEM using virtual reality technology.

The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, long the historic heart of Egyptology, has lost in 2021 other star exhibits: 22 royal mummies including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut that were relocated in a widely watched state procession to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo.

Still, it is home to around 170,000 artefacts, according to the museum director, including treasures from Yuya and Thuya - Tutankhamun's ancestors -- and items from ancient Tanis, such as the golden funerary mask of King Amenemope.

A total of 32,000 artefacts have already been relocated from storage and display halls at the Tahrir museum to the GEM.

The museum's director said the space left behind by Tutankhamun's collection will eventually be filled by a new exhibition "on par with the significance of Tut’s treasures".

Sanjō (Japan) (AFP) – All is calm at Satoshi Yamazaki's rice farm, with its freshly planted rows of vivid-green seedlings, but a row over the cost of the staple in Japan is threatening to deal the government a blow at the ballot box.

Shortages of the grain caused by a supply chain snarl-up have seen prices almost double in a year, fuelling frustration over inflation -- and voters could let their anger be known in upper house elections due next month.

To help ease the pain for consumers and restaurants, the government started tapping emergency stockpiles in March, having only previously done so during disasters.

Yamazaki, who grows about 10 percent of his rice organically using ducks to eat pests, said he understands high prices are "troubling" for ordinary people.

But he stressed that thin profits are a concern for many of those who produce it.

"There's a gap between shop prices and what farmers sell rice for to traders and the like," he told AFP in the northern Niigata region.

"Not all the money paid at shops becomes our income," said Yamazaki, a 42-year-old father of seven.

A mosaic of factors lies behind the shortages, including an intensely hot and dry summer two years ago that damaged harvests nationwide.

Since then some traders have been hoarding rice in a bid to boost their profits down the line, experts say.

The issue was made worse by panic-buying last year prompted by a government warning about a potential "megaquake" that did not strike.

Meanwhile, the rising price of imported food has boosted the popularity of domestic rice, while record numbers of tourists are also blamed for a spike in consumption.

Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi has pledged to cut prices quicker by selling stockpiled rice directly to retailers -- attracting long queues to some shops.

It appears to be working: the average retail price has edged down for a second week to 4,223 yen ($29) for five kilograms (11 pounds), down from a high of 4,285 yen in May.

That hasn't stopped opposition politicians -- with an eye on the elections -- and online critics branding the reserve rice "old", with some likening it to animal feed.

But analysts also blame Japan's decades-old policy of cutting rice-farming land. The policy was introduced to support prices that were being hit by falling demand brought about by changes in the Japanese diet.

Under the 1971 policy, farmers were told to reduce the amount of space used to grow the grain in favour of other crops.

That saw the amount of land used for rice paddies -- not including for livestock feed -- plunge below 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) in 2024, from a peak of 3.3 million hectares in 1960.

While the policy was officially abolished in 2018, it has continued in a form of incentives pushing farmers towards other commodities like soybeans.

Adding to the crisis is Japan's ageing population. Many rice farmers are old and their children have no interest in taking over.

Eighty percent of rice farmers are part-time with less than two hectares of fields but they account for only 20 percent of production, said agronomy expert Kazunuki Oizumi, professor emeritus of Miyagi University.

Their main revenue comes from other jobs or pensions, he added.

Toru Wakui, chairman of a large-scale farm in the northern Akita region who has for decades fought against the acreage reduction, said Japan should "seek an increase in rice production and exports to foreign markets".

"If you only think about the domestic market while increasing output, of course prices will fall," he told AFP. "We need to look for markets abroad."

"The 55 years of acreage reduction destroyed Japan's agriculture," said Wakui, 76, who urged Koizumi in a letter last month to "declare an expansion in rice production".

He also said Japan should consider a scheme to help young people start agriculture businesses without the burden of initial investment in fields and machinery, by involving other sectors including banks and trading companies.

Public support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's government has tumbled to its lowest level since he took office in October, which local media say was partly caused by the surge in inflation and soaring rice costs.

He has told parliament that increasing production is "an option" to temper prices, but said food security and the livelihood of producers was also important.

For the farmer Yamazaki, "wanting cheap rice with high quality" is a pipe dream.

"We farmers are a little baffled by the limelight that suddenly shifted to us," he said.

"But I think it's a good opportunity for the public to think about how rice is produced."

Kharkiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine's Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatised soldiers.

Since Russia's 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the centre of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Russian forces.

For some customers, it provides an "escape" from the war, said Valerya Zavatska -- a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer.

But many are not there just for the show. They "want to talk about what hurts," she said.

The dancers act as confidantes to soldiers bruised -- mentally and physically -- by a three-year war with no end in sight.

"Very often" they want to discuss their experiences and feelings, Lisa told AFP in a fitness centre, where the dancers practised choreography to an electro remix of the "Carmen" opera ahead of that night's show.

"The problem is that they come in sober, normal, fine. Then they drink, and that's when the darkness begins," said Zhenia, a 21-year-old dancer.

Instead of watching the performance, soldiers sometimes sit alone at the bar, crying.

Some even show the women videos from the battlefield -- including wounded comrades or the corpses of Russian soldiers.

"It can be very, very difficult, so I personally ask them not to show me, because I take it to heart too much," Lisa said.

But Zhenia -- who used to study veterinary medicine -- said she watches the footage with something a professional interest, trying to understand how a soldier could have been saved.

When performance time arrived, they put on red underwear, strapped into 20-centimetre (eight inch) platform shoes and covered their bodies with glitter -- a trick to stop married men getting too close, as the shiny specks would stick to them.

The music started. One dancer twirled around a pole, another listened attentively to a customer, while a third sat on a man's lap.

The Flash Dancers describe themselves as more "Moulin Rouge" than a strip club, and say the dancers do not enter sexual relations for money.

Prostitution -- illegal in Ukraine -- is not uncommon in areas near the frontline.

Most soldiers -- though not all -- respect the boundaries.

Sometimes friendships have been struck up.

Zhenia recalled how one soldier wrote a postcard to her, picked out by his mother -- a "wonderful woman" who now follows Zhenia on social media and sometimes sends her messages.

"I know their children, their mothers," she told AFP.

Some tell stories from their vacations, talk about their lives before the war and even come back with their wives.

"It's like a family gathering," said Nana, a 21-year-old dancer with jet-black hair.

A Colombian soldier fighting for Ukraine sipped sparkling wine on a red bench having paid almost $10 to get into the club.

Coming here "clears your mind," the 37-year-old ex-policeman -- known as "Puma" -- told AFP.

"It entertains us a little. It takes our minds off the war."

But even in the club's darkened basement, the war has a way of creeping inside.

Many of the regulars have been wounded and the dancers sometimes take gifts to hospitals.

And "an awful lot of guys who have come to us" have been killed, said Zavatska.

"Just this month alone, two died, and that's just the ones we know," she said, adding that one left behind a one-year-old infant.

A Russian strike in 2022 killed one of the group's dancers -- Lyudmila -- as well as her husband, also a former employee of the club.

She was pregnant at the time. Miraculously, her child survived.

The club closes at 10.00pm, an hour before a curfew starts.

Air raid alerts sometimes force them to stay longer, until they can head home in a brief period of relative safety.

But in Kharkiv that never lasts long.

The dancers, like everybody else, are often woken by Russia's overnight drone and missile barrages.

Even after a sleepless night, the women head back, determined to put on a performance.

"The show must go on," Zavatska said.

"We have to smile."

Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – When immigration officers leapt out of unmarked vans and ran towards undocumented men waiting by a Home Depot in Los Angeles, the day laborers scattered, terrified at the prospect of arrest and deportation.

"People were hiding under wood, in the trash, wherever they could find a little hole," said Oscar Mendia, a Guatemalan who estimated 25 people were arrested.

"It was like something out of a movie."

The raid was part of an anti-immigration crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump that has seen factories and work sites targeted since Friday, sparking days of angry protests in America's second biggest city.

"It all started here," Mendia said, pointing to the parking lot where around 20 workers had gathered on Wednesday.

Mendia, who has lived undocumented in the United States for 26 years, had never been involved in a raid before, not even during Trump's first term.

"It's one thing to see it on television," he said, "But it's another to experience it firsthand."

Stories of migrants being held in crowded cells, unable to speak to family or lawyers before being rapidly deported are frightening, said another man, aged 40, who did not provide a name.

But they are not enough to keep these workers away from the parking lot, where they gather in the hope of snagging off-the-books work in construction, farming or manual labor.

"It's difficult, but we have to work, we have families to support," said the man, who sends most of his money to Honduras to provide for his six children.

Mendia, who also used remittances to educate and raise his three children in Guatemala, says men like him have less to fear in this anti-immigration climate.

But for the new generation, the situation "is terrifying," he said.

"They come with hope, they come dreaming of a future."

Beside him, a 21-year-old nods nervously.

The young man was saved from Friday's raid because he had already been picked up for a construction project by the time the armed federal agents arrived.

On Monday, he almost didn't come back, but ultimately realized he had no choice.

"We need to do it," he told AFP.

The men's stories are echoed in parking lots, car washes and on construction sites all over Los Angeles and throughout the United States.

They fled countries devastated by economic and political crises, or by violence, in search of work to support their families.

After difficult and dangerous journeys, they work for low salaries, doing the kind of back-breaking jobs many Americans have long since abandoned -- and often pay taxes.

Undocumented migrants contributed nearly $90 billion to the public purse in 2023, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council.

Trump returned to power this year after campaigning on a pledge to conduct the biggest deportation operation in US history.

The ramped-up raids this week appear to be part of a push to make do on that promise, and come after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly ordered ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement) bosses to make at least 3,000 arrests every day.

In Los Angeles, a city with large foreign-born and Latino populations, the idea of these masked men swooping has horrified people, many of whom personally know undocumented people.

"Why is Donald Trump doing this?" asked a Mexican man who arrived in the United States nearly three decades ago.

The man, who asked not to be identified, said it was unfair to go after hard-working people who are just trying to make a living.

"Why is he attacking Los Angeles? Because we are a power, because we are the ones who make the economy," he said,

"This country will fall without Latinos."

The migrants of the 21st century might be largely Latinos, but America's rich history is one of waves of different people coming to these shores.

"This is a country of immigrants," said Mendia, recalling Trump's own German roots.

"Everyone from the president to the person who sweeps the streets."