Niamey (Niger) (AFP) – Niger’s coup d’etat on July 26 has been backed by military and civilian musicians who are turning out new tunes to match a surge in patriotic fervour. Among them, active military sergeant and star of the moment, Maman Sani Maigochi, hopes to galvanise soldiers.
Cape Canaveral (AFP) – NASA and SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft blasts off to the International Space Station, carrying four astronauts. The Crew-7 mission is commanded by American Jasmin Moghbeli and includes Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Konstantin Borisov of Russia. They will spend 6 months on the station conducting a variety of experiments.
Minsk (AFP) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says that members of the Wagner mercenary group will remain in his country, after the presumed death of their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash on August 23. “Wagner lives, Wagner has lived and Wagner will live in Belarus” he says, suggesting that Wagner fighters, who were offered exile in his country following a short-lived uprising against Russia’s military leadership, have continued to gather in Belarus and estimated their numbers to be around 10,000.
Minsk (AFP) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko says that the plane crash that presumably killed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on August 23 is “too rough and uprofessional of a job” and “doesn’t resemble Putin.” The crash took place two months after the mercenary group chief launched a short-lived rebellion against President Vladimir Putin.
Cobham (United Kingdom) (AFP) – From August 29, London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is set to expand, with proponents promising cleaner air throughout the British capital but opponents decrying the financial burden during a cost-of-living crisis. The city’s mayor Sadiq Khan is pressing ahead with the road charging scheme’s politically charged extension across Greater London despite a fierce backlash from many living in and around the newly encompassed areas.
Binnish (Syria) (AFP) – Syrian graffiti artists Aziz Asmar and Anis Hamdoun paint a mural of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the infamous head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group presumed dead in a plane crash earlier this week. The artwork, depicting him as a war criminal, adorns the side of a destroyed building in the rebel-held city of Binnish in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Madrid (AFP) – After a week of widespread outrage over his unsolicited kiss on the lips of player Jenni Hermoso following Spain’s Women’s World Cup triumph, Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales slams negative media coverage of his actions as “false feminism.” Despite being widely expected to step down, Rubiales shouts “I will not resign, I will not resign, I will not resign” at people assembled for an emergency meeting of the Spanish football federation (RFEF).
Athens (AFP) – Firefighting jets and helicopters drop water on the flames in a bid to contain a wildfire that has raged for a second day on Mount Parnitha in the largest forest next to the capital Athens, threatening a national park. Fires have burned more than 120,000 hectares of land across Greece in 2023, according to estimates from the National Observatory.
Moscow (AFP) – Russian president Vladimir Putin breaks his silence on the plane crash a day earlier that reportedly killed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and other senior members of the Wagner paramilitary group. “I have known Yevgeny Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s,” Putin says. “He was a man of complicated fate, and he made serious mistakes in his life, but he achieved the right results.”
Mexico City (AFP) – Taylor Swift fans from across Mexico arrive to the capital’s Foro Sol venue several hours before her first show of a Latin America tour, which will also take the pop superstar to Argentina and Brazil. The “Eras” Tour concerts will be the 33-year-old singer-songwriter’s first proper tour of Latin America. In Mexico, where young people earn an average salary of $366 a month according to official data, fans have paid between $55 and $614 for tickets.
Tokyo (AFP) – Protesters rally in front of the Tokyo headquarters of TEPCO, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, as Japan begins releasing wastewater from the plant. Tokyo insists the operation is safe but has generated a fierce backlash from China, who has banned all Japanese seafood imports. Around 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water are going to be discharged into the Pacific over several decades — a big step in decommissioning the still highly dangerous site, 12 years after one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.
Viña del Mar (Chile) (AFP) – In Vina del Mar, Chile, a massive landslide forced the evacuation of locals after a water collector collapsed due to heavy rains. No injuries or casualties have been reported. The town’s mayor, Macarena Ripamonti, says “there is no vital risk” and calls for an investigation into the incident.
