Correspondent
Languages
  • AFP / Eric Feferberg
  • AFP / Yasuyoshi Chiba
  • AFP / Yasuyoshi Chiba

Learning to love the Games

Friday 19 August 2016

Along with the majority of Cariocas -- the nickname for Rio residents -- AFP's correspondent in Rio de Janeiro Sebastian Smith was feeling pretty jaded as he watched the Olympic Games opening ceremony.

"But sport has a strange power and once the preliminaries ended, once athletes began to run, jump, fight, sail and hit balls, the mood changed," he writes.

"Brazilians learned to love the Games. And so, reluctantly, did I."

Read more
AFP / Yasuyoshi Chiba

The slippery slope to a banana republic

Monday 23 May 2016

"There was a moment at the height of Brazil’s titanic impeachment crisis when the whole thing boiled down to one tiny detail -- what to do with those portraits?" writes AFP's Rio de Janeiro-based correspondent Sebastian Smith.

"The controversy summed up nicely the surreal nature of Brazil's slide from global economic and political star just a few years ago toward a banana republic-style slapstick comedy."

Read more
AFP / Rodrigo Arangua

Cubans on the edge

Tuesday 5 April 2016

"Some call the Malecon, Havana’s magnificent, decaying seafront and favorite gathering place, a window on the soul of Cuba," writes AFP correspondent Sebastian Smith. "So during US President Barack Obama’s recent historic visit to the communist island I went to have a look – and found the soul troubled, excited, and restless."

Read more
AFP / Christophe Simon

Order and chaos in Rio

Friday 12 February 2016

While covering the madness that is Rio's Carnival, AFP's correspondent Sebastian Smith stopped in his tracks when he spotted a man in a simple shirt emblazoned "DISCIPLINA."

"This is not a word that seems to come up much in Brazil," he writes. "Fantasy, yes. But discipline?"

Read more