Tokyo (AFP) – The streets of Tokyo have been hit by temperatures nearing 40 degrees Celsius as authorities issue heatstroke alerts in the megacity and various other parts of Japan. At least six people have died due to the heat.
Gjirokastër (Albania) (AFP) – Firefighters and soldiers have been deployed to battle wildfires raging across the south of Albania, near the Greek border, as a heatwave sweeps the Balkans.
Antony (France) (AFP) – Reigning Paralympic champion and the only Frenchman to have won an athletics title in Japan after his Tokyo 2021 win, Charles-Antoine Kouakou has his eyes set on a second gold medal. The 400m specialist with an intellectual disability will be aiming high in this year’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Mount Arafat (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) – June 2024 was the hottest June on record across the globe, the EU’s climate monitor says, capping half a year of wild and destructive weather from floods to heatwaves. The record-breaking heat coincides with El Nino,a natural phenomenon that contributes to hotter weather globally.
Sanaa (AFP) – Yasameen Al-Raimi is training for the Paris Olympics at a makeshift range in Yemen’s capital Sanaa. Her limited facilities are a fact of life in the divided country, which has been engulfed by conflict since the northern Huthi rebels seized the capital in 2014.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Russia attacked cities across Ukraine on Monday with a missile barrage that killed dozens of people and ripped open a children’s hospital in Kyiv, an assault condemned as a ruthless attack on civilians.
Santa Cruz (Bolivia) (AFP) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is greeted by Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Celinda Sosa as he arrives at Viru Viru Airport in Santa Cruz for his state visit to the country. IMAGES
Chiriquí (Panama) (AFP) – Images show people gathered outside a hospital in Chiriqui, a province located about 500 km southwest of Panama City, after a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck, causing damage to some buildings but resulting in no casualties. IMAGES
Priozersk (Kazakhstan) (AFP) – For decades, Priozersk was a secret city, unmarked on maps and closed to the outside world, owing to nearby Soviet era military test sites. Now, authorities and residents want to turn their home into a tourist hotspot on the shore of central Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash.
Reyhanli (Turkey) (AFP) – Malak, a three-year-old Syrian girl, hears for the first time in her life after receiving a cochlear implant. She is one of almost 1,000 deaf Syrian and Turkish children accepted onto a Saudi-funded initiative being implemented in Turkey’s southeast. “I experienced the most beautiful feeling”, says Malak’s mother, Feryal.
Bone Bolango (Indonesia) (AFP) – Rescuers remove the bodies after a landslide on Indonesia’s central island, Sulawesi. Triggered by unusually heavy rains for July, the landslide has killed at least 11 people and left a further 35 missing, according to authorities. The incident struck near an illegal gold mine, with similar unlicensed sites common across the country.
Belfast (AFP) – Newly elected UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says that his government thinks it can achieve “better” relations with the EU than the “botched” Brexit deal struck by former prime minister Boris Johnson. Speaking on just his third day in power, while on a tour of the country’s four devolved regions, Starmer says he has “a very strong mandate for change, for a different relationship with the EU.”
