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Huaral (Pérou) (AFP) – Peru presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez attends mass on election day, in Huaral, just north of Lima. IMAGES

Lima (AFP) – Polls open in Peru’s presidential runoff, with crime and political instability dominating a race to choose the country’s ninth leader in a decade. IMAGES

Lima (AFP) – Polls open in Peru’s presidential runoff, with crime and political instability dominating a race to choose the country’s ninth leader in a decade. Around 27 million voters can cast ballots to choose a president for a five-year term. IMAGES

College Station (AFP) – Lionel Messi trains with Argentina’s National team in Texas, following a press conference with head coach Lionel Scaloni. “Leo is doing well. He has already trained with the group for part of the sessions, which is important. He is no longer training completely separately, so he’s progressing very well,” says Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni.

An Bord des Papstflugzeugs (AFP) – Pope Leo XIV tells the press he is ‘very happy’ to be in Spain as he greets them aboard the papal plane. The week-long state visit — the first by a pontiff to Spain since 2010 — kicked off at Madrid airport where the pope was welcomed by King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The pope is set to discuss social justice and immigration issues, and plans to meet some of the victims that have suffered from sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy.

Guadalajara (AFP) – At the Guadalajara Zoo in Mexico, animals predict some of the winners of World Cup matches. Elephants chose Mexico over South Africa, gorillas selected Uruguay over Spain, a puma picked South Korea over the Czech Republic, and giraffes chose the Democratic Republic of the Congo over Colombia, explains the zoo’s veterinarian Ivan Reynoso.

Havanna (AFP) – Former Cuban President Raul Castro attends an event for the 65th anniversary of the creation of the Ministry of the Interior in Havana, in his first public appearance since being indicted by the United States on murder charges in May. While Cuba has been under a US trade embargo since 1962, President Donald Trump has drastically ramped up pressure in recent months, cutting off its fuel supplies and threatening to take over the island.

St. Petersburg (AFP) – Russia unveils a new amusement ride in Saint Petersburg named ‘Oreshnik’ after its hypersonic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Russia has fired Oreshnik missiles — which travel 10 times the speed of sound — at Ukraine on at least three occasions. President Putin has said that Russia is considering expanding the use of the missiles against cities in Ukraine, saying the weapon has not yet been used in the “full sense of the word”.

Tirana (Albania) (AFP) – Thousands of Albanians protest in Tirana for a fourth consecutive day against a coastal tourism complex allegedly linked to US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The demonstrators argue that the estimated $1.2 billion project, led by Kushner and his wife Ivanka, will harm the environment, with plans for luxury hotels in the protected area of Vjosa-Narta on the southern coast. “We are not against the development of Albania, but we are for transparency, we are against construction in protected areas,” demonstrator Etleva Merko insists.

Saint Petersburg (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin says that he sees “no point” in meeting Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky until a peace deal was ready, rebuffing the Ukrainian leader’s call for a face-to-face encounter. “I see no point in meeting. It only makes sense for the Ukrainian side to stop the advance of our armed forces. That’s it. And we need agreements,” Putin tells Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, a day after Zelensky released an open later calling for a meeting.

Peru (AFP) – Under the scorching sun of the Peruvian Altiplano, 78-year-old Dominga Quenta, an Indigenous Aymara woman, no longer expects anything from Lima. With only days to go before the presidential runoff between right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez, people like her have long since stopped believing in politicians’ promises. “No one ever comes here; no one ever sees us. We fend for ourselves,” says Rufino Cutipa, a former teacher and local farmer.

Washington (United States) (AFP) – President Donald Trump says the United States will “take care” of Cuba as he addresses reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, calling the island’s communist government “very tough, very nasty”. “I like to do one thing at a time,” he says. “We’ll take care of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and as soon as that’s done, on our way back, we’ll just make a little brief stop over.”