AFP UK

Paris (AFP) – Spanish defender Sergio Ramos says he is not coming to Paris SG to “show off” his Champions League titles or his “prize list”, but rather “to win it again”.

Havana (AFP) – “We don’t know where my brother is.” Cubans are looking for their detained relatives in a police station near the town of La Guinera, in Havana, where unprecedented protests erupted the day before.

Soweto (South Africa) (AFP) – Walking among the remains of her shop, which was looted during unrest in South Africa, Thandi Johnson says that she has “nothing left”, despite troops being deployed in an attempt to prevent the destruction caused by thousands on the streets. The unrest erupted on the 9th of July after ex-president Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month term for snubbing a probe into the corruption that stained his nine years in power.

Brasília (AFP) – In a livestream from 8 July, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apologises for hiccups that he says he’s had for a week. Bolsonaro has now been hospitalised to investigate the causes of the hiccups, which he said started after dental surgery on the 3 July.

Rome (AFP) – Michelangelo dreamed it, Olivier Grossetête did it: the artist from Marseille has created a cardboard bridge over the Tiber River in Rome to link the gardens of the Villa Farnesina to the Farnese Palace, a splendid Renaissance building that houses the French embassy. The 18-metre structure is suspended by three helium-filled balloons measuring six metres in diameter.

Sukkur (Pakistan) (AFP) – Freshwater dolphins are flourishing in a stretch of Pakistan’s main river after a helping hand from fishermen mobilised to defend a rare species driven to near-extinction.

Yangon (AFP) – Residents across Myanmar’s biggest city are defying a military curfew in a desperate search for oxygen to keep their loved ones breathing as a new coronavirus wave crashes over the coup-wracked country.

Sydney (AFP) – Police guard the entrances of a Sydney apartment block where nine people have tested positive for Covid-19. The building was placed under strict lockdown, as authorities step up efforts to curb a coronavirus outbreak. Residents put up signs reading “send beer” and “where is the vaccine?” in the buildings’ windows. Australia’s latest Covid-19 outbreak began in mid-June and has since grown to 767 cases.

Nasiriyah (Iraq) (AFP) – Aerial images show the aftermath of a fire which enveloped a Covid isolation unit and killed 64 in southern Iraq. The deadly blaze at Al-Hussein Hospital in the provincial capital Nasiriyah, which medics said was fuelled by the explosion of oxygen canisters, was the second such fire in Iraq in three months.

Berlin (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany is not planning to follow France and other countries in introducing compulsory Covid-19 vaccinations for parts of the population.

Tokyo (AFP) – In Tokyo’s busy business area of Shinjuku, a giant 3D cat on a 4K billboard greets shoppers. Passers-by are flocking to photograph it, with many unable to believe how lifelike it is.

Dallas (AFP) – A cartridge of Nintendo’s classic video game “Super Mario 64” sets a world record, selling for $1.56 million (€1.32 million) after a 20% buyer’s premium at the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. The sale, the first ever of a game cartridge to surpass $1 million, came just two days after a sealed copy of “The Legend of Zelda”, made for the old Nintendo NES console, sold for a then-record of $870,000.