#afp

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Servion, Switzerland

The first ever recorded albino Galápagos tortoise makes its public debut at a Swiss zoo following its hatching last month

Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty Images

[vyorei]

There's a big ol protest happening out the UN HQ right now, love to see it

Image source: Angela Weiss/AFP via Al Jazeera English

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon jour ☕️ 🥐 🍎 bon Week-end à tous

Salon de l'agriculture 🚜🗼Paris

Photo de l'AFP 1964

[mapsontheweb]

Natural Gas Reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean

[shihlun]

AFP slides, Beijing, June 1989.

[happyzenmonk]

Kizilkup Canyon, Kazahstan

source: robertharding via AFP/Michael Runker

[fuckheadz]

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

While some military figures killed in duty are posthumously promoted in rank, Agence France Presse slapped terror commanders killed last night alongside Hamas deputy chief Salah Al-Arouri (also spelled Al-Aruri) with a demotion.

A screenshot from AFP’s Facebook page echoing the claim about Al-Arouri’s slain “bodyguards”

Thus, this morning’s article, “Israel ready ‘for any scenario’ after strike kills Hamas deputy in Lebanon,” had originally reported (6:38 AM GMT):

A high-level security official in Lebanon told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in a strike by Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement’s shock October 7 attacks. [Emphasis added.]

Similarly, a separate story this morning, “Hamas says Israel strike in Lebanon kills its deputy chief,” likewise cited the death of Al-Arouri’s “bodyguards”:

A high-level security official told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in the strike by Israel, which vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel. [Emphasis added.]

Hamas commander Samir Findi (Screenshot from Roya News)

In fact, those killed alongside Al-Aruri included two top military commanders, and were not merely “bodyguards.” As Times of Israel reported:

Hamas confirmed that seven people in total were killed in the explosion, a precision strike on a third-floor apartment said to serve as an office for the terror group. The others besides Arouri were identified as military commanders Samir Findi and Azzam Al-Aqraa, along with Hamas figures Mahmoud Shaheen, Muhammad Bashasha, Muhammad al-Rayes and Ahmed Hammoud. According to reports, Findi oversaw Hamas military activities in Lebanon — including the firing of rockets at Israel — and was considered the terror group’s point man with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Al-Aqraa reportedly orchestrated terror activities in the West Bank from overseas.

Similarly, The New York Times reported:

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top political leader, said the strike had killed Mr. al-Arouri, two Hamas military commanders and four other members. [Emphasis added.]

The Associated Press likewise reported today:

Hamas confirmed that Arouri was killed along with six other members of the group, including two military commanders. [Emphasis added.]

AFP also failed to accurately report the full “credentials” of al-Arouri himself, identifying him only as Hamas’ deputy leader. But the terror leader’s robust Curriculum Vitae also includes founding Hamas’ military wing, a fact reported elsewhere including AP, Reuters, the New York Times. The Gray Lady detailed:

Mr. al-Arouri played a key role in Hamas’s relationships with its regional allies and in increasing Hamas’s military capabilities, according to regional and Western officials. A longtime Hamas operative, he was one of the founders of the group’s armed wing and was linked to a number of attacks on Israeli civilians, including the kidnapping and killing of three teenagers in the West Bank in 2014, which he called a “heroic operation.”

AFP’s abridged resume said only: “Aruri, who lived in exile, is accused by Israel of masterminding numerous attacks.”

Following communication with CAMERA’s Israel’s office, AFP’s updated article later this morning (“Israel ready ‘for any scenario’ after strike kills Hamas deputy in Lebanon,” 11:22 am GMT), more fully described Al-Arouri as “the political number two of its enemy Hamas and one of the founders of the Islamist group’s military wing.”

In addition, the erroneous reference to slain “bodyguards” no longer appears, with the updated language more accurately stating, “Aruri and six other militants were killed in the attack.” The later version, however, still does not note the two commanders’ high-level positions.

[eretzyisrael]

CAMERA’s Israel office yesterday prompted correction of an English-language Agence France Presse article which erroneously reported that all of the Palestinian refugees from 1948 were forcibly displaced from their homes. In fact, the vast majority of the estimated 760,000 Palestinian Arabs who left in 1948 fled, often at the urging of their own leaders. They were not “forcibly displaced.”

The Arab section of Safed, 1946 (Photo by Kluger Zoltan, GPO Photo Archive)

The Feb. 4 article, “Arab Israelis let out of Gaza recount ‘terrifying’ journey,” had initially erroneously reported: “The majority of the Palestinian population, around 760,000 people, was forcibly displaced during the [1948] conflict, in what they call the Nakba or catastrophe” (11:10 am GMT). (As of this writing, the original, uncorrected text is still available at L’Orient Today).

Neither the French nor Arabic versions of the same AFP article contained the error.

AFP’s usual language on this point accurately reports “more than 760,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by the 1948 war over Israel���s creation.” (See, for instance, “Palestinian family in Lebanon grieves for dead Gaza relatives,” Nov. 27, 2023. Likewise, AFP’s Dec. 27, 2023 article, “Israel army chief says Gaza war to last ‘many more months,'” which cited “the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation when 760,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.” (Emphases added.)

Following CAMERA’s correspondence with AFP, editors commendably updated the article, changing the sentence to accurately state: “The majority of the Palestinian population, around 760,000 people, either fled or were forced from their homes during the conflict, in what they call the Nakba or catastrophe.”

The Guardian and Reuters Arabic have previously corrected the identical error after wrongly referring to all 1948 Palestinian refugees as expelled.

[blasteffect]

 1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua)

An artist’s impression of interstellar asteroid `Oumuamua. It is a dark red highly-elongated metallic or rocky object, about 400 metres long, and unlike anything normally found in the solar system. 

Illustration: M. Kornmesser/AFP/Getty Images

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Duisburg, Germany

Young koalas, the male Yunga and the female Erlinga, are pictured during their first outing at the koala house of the zoo

Photograph: Bernd Lauter/AFP/Getty Images

[drsonnet]

Our #feminism..in the International day of woman

Palestinian Christian woman takes off her high heel shoes as she throws stones at Israeli soldiers, after Sunday Mass, in Beit Sahur in the #WestBank, during the First Intifada, March 6, 1988. #InternationalWomensDay

- ESAIAS BAITEL/AFP/Getty Images

Micheline Awad, who following Sunday Mass, took off her yellow heels & picked up stones to throw at IOF soldiers as they invaded Beit Sahour, West Bank in 1988

صاحبة الصورة هي الفلسطينية ميشلين عواد، حيث كانت ترتدي حينها الملابس السوداء (وتنورة)، وتحيط بعنقها وشاحاَ أصفراللون يكاد تظهر ملامحه في الصورة الملتقطة، وبيدها حذاؤها الأنثوي الأصفر، وفي اليد الأخرى تقذف الحجر تجاه الجنود الإسرائيليين وفي أعقاب الانتفاضة الأولى. 

وقبل خلع الحذاء الأصفر كانت تستعد لحضور طقوس لعيد ديني مسيحي في الكنيسة، ولم تكن تعلم حينها بأن الكاميرا سوف تظهرها في صورة قد تثيرا جدلا فيما بعد داخل  الوسط الفلسطيني.

ونقلا عن قناة " بي بي سي" قالت مشلين : "كان هناك عيد ديني في الكنسية، ولم ارتدي هذا اللباس للمظاهرة، لم نكن نتوقع حدوثها في ذاك اليوم، فعندما رأيت الجنود يقتربون والشبان يركضون، ركضت بدوري خلف الشباب، فلم يكن بإمكاني أن اركض بالحذاء الأصفر فخلعته وبدأت أركض كغيري، وفجأة انحنيت لالتقط الحجر ولم أكن أعلم بأنه الكاميرا ستوثق هذه اللحظة".

" عمري 63 عاماً، ولم أعد احتفظ بالحذاء الأصفر".

Facebook صورة ظلت صاحبتها مجهولة لـ٣٠عاما - BBC News عربي

[fidjiefidjie]

Bonjour, bon Week-end à tous ☕️ 🥐 🍓

Annie Girardot sur le quai de la gare 📽 Cannes 1972

Photo AFP Archives

[mapsontheweb]

Map showing the situation in Ukraine, as of January 17 at 0800 GMT

by @AFP

[mysharona1987]

Happens to us all, I guess.

[happyzenmonk]

Beach

Photo: stringer/imaginechina/afp