The international photo exhibition Visa Pour l’Image in the southern French city of Perpignan celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and showcases AFP images from DR Congo, El Salvador, Afghanistan and Bahrain.

Olivier Morin, the AFP photographer who took this exceptional photo, managed to capture the champion Usain Bolt crossing the finish line at the same time as a lightning bolt illuminated the Moscow sky.

International news agency AFP has published a new guide on how its journalists should use social networks including tighter rules on making accounts secure.

Emmanuel Giroud, 46, has been appointed head of the Cairo bureau and will take up the post in August. Hired onto AFP's international desk in 1996, he has worked in Lyon, Ajaccio and Nairobi. Emmanuel also ran the Islamabad bureau for several years and was chief of the Europe desk in Paris prior to this latest appointment.

AFP photographer Adrian Dennis has won photograph of the year at the press photographer’s 2013 competition for his striking image of Thai rider Nina Lamsan Ligon and her horse at the London Olympics. He also won the Sports Folio of the Year and Olympic Folio categories in the competition that rewards the best photographs in the British media.

AFP will be transmitting photographs from the 100th Tour de France in virtual real time thanks to innovative satellite technology which will allow transmission from motor cycles following the race.   AFP is installing auto-pointing satellite terminals which can transmit at rest or on the move.   They will allow photographers to send their images at any moment and in virtual real time, and will be particularly effective in stretches of the Tour where the phone network is insufficient to carry the agency’s production.

AFP is sending a 40 strong team to the Confederations Cup, which runs from June 15 to 30 in Brazil and is seen as a rehearsal for next year’s World Cup.

AFP and Relaxnews, which already offer their AFP-Relaxnews service in English and in French, are launching the service in Brazil on June 26.

AFP photographers scooped two gold medals, one silver and two bronze as the agency’s photographers dominated the annual Sportsfolio photo festival in Narbonne, France.

Some of its best photos from 2012 will be shown by the International News Agency AFP at the Photo Festival The Browse opening on June 13, 2013 in the German capital.