‘The soul of the city’: can Kinshasa’s last remaining baobab tree be saved?

Par :Emmet Livingstone in Kinshasa. Photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham

7 janvier 2026 à 07:00

Across Africa, baobabs have rich symbolic meaning, but the breakneck expansion of the DRC’s capital has reduced their number in the city centre to one

The older inhabitants of Kinshasa can remember when trees shaded its main avenues and thick-trunked baobabs stood in front of government offices.

Jean Mangalibi, 60, from his plant nursery tucked among grey tower blocks, says the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s frenzied expansion has all but erased its greenery. “We’re destroying the city,” he says, over the sound of drilling from a nearby building site.

Man with machete shot and killed by police, who then find 3 more dead inside home: officials

FOXNews

Par :Alex Nitzberg

6 janvier 2026 à 20:35

Police shot and killed a man armed with a knife in the Garden State on Monday, the New Jersey state attorney general's office announced.

‘We have a new role’: mayors across the world increasingly taking on society’s biggest challenges

The Guardian

Par :Ashifa Kassam European Community affairs correspondent

6 janvier 2026 à 06:00

From Budapest to Barcelona, New York to Paris, mayors are increasingly being thrust on to the political frontlines as they face down the rise of the far right

In Budapest, it was a call to flout the Hungarian government’s ban on Pride that catapulted the city’s mayor into the headlines. In Barcelona it was a bold plan to rid the city – one of Europe’s most visited – of tourist flats by late 2028. And in Paris, it was a drastic makeover; one that included making the Seine swimmable and turning its car-clogged riverbanks into pedestrian-friendly areas.

The mayors’ actions – and the global conversation they elicited – hinted at how, in much of the world, the role of mayor has been recast. Gone are the stereotypes of endless ribbon cutting ceremonies and flesh-pressing events; instead mayors are increasingly being thrust on to the frontlines of some of society’s thorniest challenges.

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