Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that the West remains divided over the extent of its support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s invasion. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, he singles out the European Union for its lack of unity.
Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis says his “heart aches for the massacre at the primary school in Texas,” which left at least 19 children and two teachers dead. “It is time to say enough is enough to indiscriminate arms trafficking,” he adds after his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.
London (AFP) – Harry and Meghan’s figures have re-joined the royal family and the waxworks have been given a black tie makeover at Madame Tussauds in London, as the UK prepares to celebrate the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.
Mardan (Pakistan) (AFP) – Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Imran Khan greets supporters after landing his helicopter in the middle of a highway leading to Islamabad. He earlier called for a major rally in the country’s capital.
Peshawar (Pakistan) (AFP) – Imran Khan supporters gather in the ousted prime minister’s power base in the northwestern city of Peshawar planning to depart for a centre-piece showdown protest in Islamabad, as police block all roads leading to the capital city. IMAGES
Le Mont-Saint-Michel (France) (AFP) – French daredevil tightrope walker Nathan Paulin claim a new world record after completing a 2,200-metre-long (nearly 1.4-mile) trip to Mont Saint-Michel on a wire suspended between a crane and the famous abbey on the tidal island. It took him two hours to inch his way, barefoot, along the two-centimetre-wide slackline. +COMPLETES 32AZ9Z2_EN+ AND SOUNDBITES
Batu Pahat (Malaysia) (AFP) – Drones spraying pesticide, sensors taking soil readings, sprinklers that squirt fertiliser at the touch of a button — a Malaysian plantation is using high-tech methods to boost its crop of pungent durians.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – In his nightly address, Zelensky says that three months of war in Ukraine are “three months of war crimes by the Russian occupiers — three months of their blows, destruction, blockade.” He adds that “the occupiers want to destroy everything” in Donbas.
Washington (AFP) – US President Joe Biden vows to find a way to tighten gun ownership laws after a mass shooting at an elementary school left at least 19 schoolchildren dead in Texas on Tuesday.
Nazaré (Portugal) (AFP) – Germany’s Sebastian Steudtner is the new record holder for the biggest wave ever surfed, for an 86-foot (26.2-metre) breaker ridden on October 29, 2020 in Nazaré, Portugal, the World Surf League (WSL) announced on Tuesday.
Colombo (AFP) – Motorists line up for hours in serpentine queues outside fuel stations to fill up on petrol and diesel, both in short supply, in crisis-hit Sri Lanka. The cash-strapped country sharply hiked fuel prices to a record high on Tuesday, causing further pain to the country’s 22 million people in its worst crisis since independence. The South Asian island nation has suffered months of dire shortages and anti-government protests, which turned deadly earlier in May with at least nine people killed.
Fairfax (United States) (AFP) – Spectators line up before dawn outside a courthouse in Virginia in the hope of receiving a wristband allowing them in the courtroom where US actor Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation. “I should have been at the beginning of the line and somehow I ended up at the end of the line,” says 46-year-old KB Plesnik. “I don’t know how that happened. It was like a mad dash. It felt like the zombie apocalypse.”
