Bali battles mounting plastic waste

Dozens of foreigners caught without masks to protect against the coronavirus on the Indonesian resort island of Bali have been subjected to an unusual punishment: push-ups in the street.

Alarmed by the mountains of plastic waste leaching into Indonesia's waters, two best friends are taking on the environmental menace by turning crisp bags and shampoo packets into paving bricks.

Nina Gomes is no average environmentalist. With bright pink goggles and just 4 years old, she picks trash with her father from the water along the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. With Nina in tow, Gomes sets out on a paddleboard into the picturesque but polluted waters of Rio's Guanabara Bay, where she grabs plastic bottles and bags and puts them in a mesh net.

A retired Boeing passenger jet has been hauled to the top of a seaside cliff in Bali to lure tourists to Indonesia's popular holiday island, which has been hard hit by Covid-19. More than a dozen workers used cranes to assemble parts of a Boeing 737 on a cliff near the Nyang Nyang beach this week. Felix Demin, the plane's new owner, is planning to convert the aircraft into tourist accommodation and expects it will become a popular photography spot.

With greenhouses as far as the eye can see, the southern Spanish region of Andalusia has been nicknamed the "Sea of Plastic". Intensive farming is the norm and it helps feed the European market with fruit and vegetables all year long. It also produces an estimated 33,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year. Until two years ago, this waste was exported to countries such as China, Pakistan and Turkey. But now that these countries are refusing to take rubbish from rich countries, the "Sea of Plastic" is faced with the urgent challenge of recycling its own waste. Our correspondents report.

Tetiꞌaroa, an almost deserted Pacific island northeast of Tahiti, is a sanctuary for birds, sea turtles and all sorts of marine life. The atoll is perhaps most famous for being bought by US actor Marlon Brando. But this picturesque French Polynesian island is being invaded by plastic waste washed ashore by ocean tides. As a result, a team of volunteers have been to Tetiꞌaroa for a clean-up operation. Our colleagues from Polynésie la première report, with FRANCE 24's Jennie Shin.

The Dominican Republic markets itself as a tropical vacation paradise. But behind the scenes lie heaps of trash from mass tourism. People like Eddy Rosado and the UN environment program are trying to shrink the Caribbean nation's garbage dumps.

People are still talking about Ghana's unique bus shelter made of plastic waste. It has been billed as a novel and sustainable way to put discarded plastic to use and fight pollution.

It is a common sight in Addis Ababa these days to see men, women and even children moving around the city with huge bags of plastic waste. Their hauls mostly contain plastic bottles, but any plastic waste they come across will fetch cash according to its weight.

Two decades after the bombings that killed over 200 people in Bali, two women tell DW how they experienced those fateful events and how they eventually learned to forgive.

As Biden and Xi prepare to meet in person as top leaders for the first time, experts say the meeting is aimed at preventing competition from spiraling and predict there may be no breakthrough in the relationship.