In the DR Congo's boisterous capital Kinshasa, a road close to the city centre is lined with traders hawking unusual merchandise: church pulpits. . But last year, a Congolese MP pushed to close 10,000 churches deemed to be corrupt.
When Ali Saga visited a clinic in Jakarta four decades ago, he watched as patients and health workers scrambled to get away from him.. - 'No longer in pain' - Nearly 500 people who had leprosy now live in Sitanala because it was located behind a hospital that for decades served as the rehabilitation centre for patients across Indonesia.
"A week before my mother died, her house was broken into and burned down," said Mathieu Okoma Agoa, from a village in Ivory Coast.. Okoma Agoa's mother suffered from leprosy, a disease that made her a social outcast long before she died.
For much of the last century Belfast's dockyards dominated global shipbuilding but now the harbour that built Titanic is the launchpad for some of the world's biggest TV and film releases.. In a sign of its ambitions, Belfast's Ulster University has partnered with the harbour to deliver the next generation of film and TV production through its new Studio Ulster project.
Driver Tharaa Ali takes her seat at the helm of a high-speed train ferrying pilgrims to Mecca, a beneficiary of conservative Saudi Arabia's bid to employ its booming female workforce.. But last year she joined some 28,000 applicants vying for just 32 slots for women drivers on the Haramain High Speed Railway, which plies the 450-kilometre (280-mile) route between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina at speeds of up to 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour.
Italian Sabato De Sarno has been appointed creative director at Gucci, the luxury label and parent group Kering announced on Saturday.. The designer from Naples succeeds Alessandro Michele, who left the Italian luxury brand in November after seven years as creative director.
Dan Izzett has lived with leprosy's effects on his body for 70 years, and has lost much to what he calls an "ancient, fascinating, very unkind disease".. Now 75, Izzett has no feeling above his elbows, below his knees or in 70 percent of his face.
In a hospital in Brazil's Amazon, half a dozen Yanomami children are dozing in blue hammocks. . Most of the Yanomami children, who are generally eight years old or younger, are about half the normal weight for their age -- and sometimes even less, Patricio explains.
Turkey summoned Denmark's ambassador on Friday to condemn Copenhagen for allowing a far-right extremist to burn Korans over Ankara's refusal to let Sweden and Finland join NATO. Anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan, a Danish-Swedish dual national, first burnt a copy of the Muslim holy book near a mosque in the Danish capital and then a second copy outside the Turkish embassy.. Paludan vowed on Friday to stage weekly actions involving the Koran until Turkey approves Sweden and Finland's NATO membership.
France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday he was "particularly shocked" after a train departing a busy Paris station appeared to deliberately run over a domestic cat.. Darmanin on Friday said he was "particularly shocked by the way SNCF unfortunately managed the terrible affair".
