Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden marked the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd on Wednesday, on day after a school shooting that came as a cruel reminder of his powerlessness to rein in America’s violent demons.
Beijing (AFP) – People in Beijing are making the most of the small spaces available as virus controls close in. The capital has recorded just dozens of cases each day but has also gone quiet since early May with schools closed and everyone – other than doctors and a few essential workers — told to work from home. Now the city is watching and waiting to see which way the virus trends.
Honiara (AFP) – IMAGES Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his delegation leave their hotel in the Solomon Islands ahead of meetings with the Honiara government. It comes as China puts forward a wide-ranging draft agreement and a five-year plan to ten nations in the Pacific, as part of Wang’s tour of Pacific nations, which began Thursday. The South Pacific is increasingly a theatre for competition between China and the United States — which has been the primary power in the region for the last century.
Setubinha (Brazil) (AFP) – An NGO reports that Brazil’s Atlantic Forest in Minas Gerais state has seen a 66% increase in deforestation in 2021 compared to the previous year, warning that this coastal rainforest is at ‘high’ risk. Between November 2020 and October 2021, the Atlantic rainforest lost around 21,600 hectares, an area equivalent to more than 20,000 football fields, according to a study carried out by the SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation, using satellite images from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mockingly says that “great geopoliticians are always unwilling to see ordinary people, ordinary Ukrainians.” He adds that such people are ignoring “millions of those who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace.”
Soledar (Ukraine) (AFP) – Empty playgrounds, lonely dogs and a constant backdrop of shelling fill the otherwise ghostly towns of Soledar and Bakhmut, located in the besieged Ukrainian east. The only movement is people boarding a bus — storing their suitcases in the hold and preparing to flee.
Uvalde (United States) (AFP) – “This town is hurt,” says Adolfo Hernandez, whose nephew was at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. “You just want to pinch yourself and wake up from that horrible nightmare,” he tells AFP.The tight-knit Latino community in the town is wracked with grief after a teen in body armor marched into an elementary school and killed 19 small children and two teachers, in the latest spasm of deadly gun violence in America.
London (AFP) – In a press conference, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson repeats his apologies after the publication of an internal inquiry by senior civil servant Sue Gray on lockdown-breaking parties at his residence of Downing Street, but maintains he believed they were “work events” and says he does not intend to resign “no matter how bitter and painful the conclusions of this may be”.
Kherson (Ukraine) (AFP) – Since Moscow captured Kherson in early March, information on what is happening there has been hard to come by. AFP journalists joined a press trip organised by the Russian Defence Ministry to find a region relatively untouched by the fighting – yet ‘apprehensive’ about the future.
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.
