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  • AFP / Mandel Ngan
  • AFP / Alex Edelman
  • AFP / Alex Edelman
  • AFP / Eric Baradat
  • POOL / AFP / Win Mcnamee
  • AFP / Saul Loeb
  • AFP / Angela Weiss

My last trip with Trump

Wednesday 20 January 2021

Washington DC - President Donald Trump -- he'd be President Trump for only another 180 minutes -- climbed the front steps of Air Force One. This icy cold January 20, the beautiful, glistening plane was taking him to Florida – and on a trip like no other.

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  • AFP / Saul Loeb
  • AFP / Brendan Smialowski
  • AFP / Brendan Smialowski
  • AFP / Brendan Smialowski

Mad days in the court of King Donald

Wednesday 16 October 2019

"Standing a sofa's length from President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, I realized I was listening to the leader of the free world rage on the subject of jockstraps," writes Sebastian Smith.

"As so often before in this job of White House correspondent, I felt my eyes bulge in amazement. Then I took a deep breath, refocused, and tried to speed up my note taking. After all, it was just another day in the Trump White House."

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AFP / Rodrigo Buendia

“Arigato gozaimasu, Brazil”

Friday 7 September 2018

"This is the story of how, in order to grasp what makes Brazilians tick, I first had to learn Japanese," writes journalist Sebastian Smith at the end of a three-year posting to Brazil.

"And how in the process I broke a toe, dislocated a finger, sprained most things, bruised the others, made friends, and still ended up with questions about this enchanting, confounding country."

"But then things are never simple in Brazil."

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  • AFP / Apu Gomes
  • AFP / Apu Gomes
  • AFP / Apu Gomes
  • AFP / Apu Gomes
  • AFP / Apu Gomes
  • AFP / Apu Gomes

In the depths of the Amazon

Friday 24 November 2017

"There’s a point, whatever corner of the world you’re traveling in, when you may have that urgent question: where’s the toilet? But at the start of a rare visit to Waiapi tribal territory deep in the Amazon, the question we had was more nuanced: what even was the toilet?"

And so began a rare days-long reporting trip with the tribe for a Rio-based AFP team -- Sebastian Smith of text, Apu Gomes of photo and Marie Hospital of video. Below they recount this and many other adventures.

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