Juli (Peru) (AFP) – Wearing traditional multilayered “pollera” skirts and long braids, female farmers on the outskirts of Peru’s highland city of Puno take to the pitch to train for a local football competition.
Port Klang (Malaysia) (AFP) – Malaysian customs officials say they have seized a stash of rare animal parts worth $18 million thought to have come from Africa, including elephant tusks, rhino horns and pangolin scales.
New York (AFP) – Baseball is the United States’ national pastime, but in New York, a cricket club is celebrating 150 years not out, thanks to the city’s large immigrant communities.
Ubud (Indonesia) (AFP) – Thousands of people gather for a laughter yoga session on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali to heal themselves with giggles and prayers for world peace.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sacks his chief prosecutor and the head of the country’s security agency amid a high number of cases of suspected treason by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.
Fort Lauderdale (United States) (AFP) – Images of the Fort Lauderdale courthouse where Nikolas Cruz, a young man who gunned down 17 people at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, goes on trial, with jurors set to hand down either the death penalty or a life sentence.
Brighton (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Britons flock to Brighton beach at the weekend as they prepare for unusually high temperatures forecast on Monday and Tuesday. In the United Kingdom, the weather office issued a first-ever “red” warning for extreme heat, cautioning there was a “risk to life”. The Met Office said temperatures in southern England could exceed 40C on Monday or Tuesday for the first time, leading some schools to say they would stay closed next week. Scientists blame climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heatwaves.
Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis says in his Angelus address that next week’s visit to Canada, where he will meet indigenous survivors of abuse committed at residential schools run by the Catholic Church, is “a penitential pilgrimage”.
Damascus (AFP) – A ghost town since a 2018 Syrian operation to flush out jihadists, Hajar al-Aswad found new purpose as the setting for a Jackie Chan-produced action movie. “Home Operation” is inspired by China’s evacuation of Chinese and other foreign citizens from the war in Yemen, an operation that was seen as a landmark for Beijing. Jackie Chan is the main producer of what the film’s synopsis pitches as a blockbuster that will glorify the role of the Chinese authorities in a heroic evacuation.
Munich (Germany) (AFP) – The departure of Robert Lewandowski leaves Bayern Munich with the unenviable task of finding a replacement for the Bundesliga’s most prolific contemporary striker after his relationship with the club turned sour. ‘What Robert has achieved here is more than extraordinary. He won everything here and contributed to many titles,’ says Bayern Munich CEO Oliver Kahn.
