Radomir (Bulgaria) (AFP) – Mack Rutherford, a British-Belgian 17-year-old, becomes the youngest person to fly solo around the world. Five months and a day after taking off from Bulgaria in March, Rutherford returned to the small airport near the town of Radomir, an hour from the capital Sofia, to claim his record.
Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden announces that most Americans trying to pay off university loans will get $10,000 forgiven in a bid to address the decades-old headache of massive educational debt across the country.
Fazilpur (Pakistan) (AFP) – In Pakistan’s Punjab province residents are fleeing deadly flooding triggered by record monsoon rains. The government is struggling to cope with the disaster which has already killed more than 900 people in the country since June. Pakistan’s climate change minister said on Wednesday that the floods were causing a “catastrophe of epic scale”, and announced an international appeal for help.
Mykolaiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Six months since the start of Russia’s invasion, residents of Mykolaiv feel dread and resignation as the daily shelling of their city in southern Ukraine becomes the new routine.
Mykolaiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Six months since the start of Russia’s invasion, residents of Mykolaiv feel dread and resignation as the daily shelling of their city in southern Ukraine becomes the new routine.
Hong Kong (AFP) – One of Hong Kong’s tourist icons, the Peak Tram, holds a media tour to unveil new carriages and terminal after a year-long closure for a HK$799 million (US$102 million) renovation, a few days before it reopens to the public.
Kutupalong (Bangladesh) (AFP) – Rohingya refugees hold “Genocide Remembrance Day” rallies across the huge network of squalid camps in Bangladesh where they live in dire conditions, marking five years since fleeing from a brutal military offensive in Myanmar. In August 2017 around 750,000 of the mostly Muslim minority streamed over the border from mostly Buddhist Myanmar from the onslaught, which is now the subject of a landmark genocide case at the UN’s top court. Today there are nearly a million Rohingya, half of them under 18, in rickety huts in a network of camps in southeastern Bangladesh where the mud lanes regularly become rivers of sewage during monsoon rains. IMAGES
Paris (AFP) – Ukrainians and other residents in Paris, Berlin and Tel Aviv march through their cities to mark Ukraine’s independence day and also to protest against Russia’s invasion of the country, which has now lasted for six months.
Chongqing (China) (AFP) – Malls and subway stations attract dozens of people who want to keep cool and beat the soaring heat in China’s southwestern city of Chongqing, as the country faces its hottest summer on record.
Berlin (AFP) – Chancellor Olaf Scholz assures Kyiv of Germany’s support for as long as necessary as Ukraine marks its independence day and six months since the start of the Russian invasion. of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukraine unveils its ‘Train to Victory’: a project in collaboration with Ukrainian artists that aims to convey the message that Ukraine will reclaim its Russian-occupied territories. It also honours rail workers taking part in civilian evacuations.
Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis calls for peace “for the beloved Ukrainian people” on the war-torn country’s Independence Day and the six-month anniversary of the start of Russia’s invasion.
