Cholet (France) (AFP) – UGC images show people running after fireworks celebrating the Bastille Day shoot into a crowd in Cholet, France on Thursday. A 7-year-old boy and his 24-year-old sister were killed during the event at Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) in France on Thursday evening, the Angers public prosecutor said.
Colombo (AFP) – After nearly 100 days of protests, a small crowd celebrates the resignation of Sri Lanka’s leader at the seaside headquarters of their campaign to oust him. Rajapaksa emailed his resignation from a safe haven in Singapore after fleeing the country to escape public wrath.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that a “special tribunal” is needed to investigate Russian aggression. He alo says that 23 people, including three children under the age of ten, were killed in a missile attack on the city of Vinnytsia.
Aveiro (Portugal) (AFP) – A car drives through a wildfire in central Portugal, where over 2,000 firefighters were battling four major fires across the country on Thursday morning. Portugal has been on alert for wildfires for days, bringing back memories of the devastating fires in 2017, which claimed the lives of more than 100 people.
Port-au-Prince (AFP) – Haitians protest in a week when at least 89 people have been killed in gang clashes in Port-au-Prince and prices continue to soar while fuel shortages worsen, threatening the humanitarian aid that is so crucial to the people. “We are facing misery and hunger and our children can no longer go to school. The government is useless… It has to go,” a motorcycle cab driver says.
Singapore (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s president submitted his resignation shortly after reaching Singapore, the parliamentary speaker’s office said, days after the head of state fled protests triggered by his country’s worst-ever economic crisis. Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka, after protesters overran his palace on the weekend, heading first to the Maldives and then Singapore.
Manila (AFP) – Less than a year after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to protect free speech, Philippine journalist Maria Ressa is fighting to stay out of jail while her news website Rappler faces possible closure. But the spirited veteran reporter — a vocal critic of former president Rodrigo Duterte and his deadly drug war — refuses to be cowed into silence. “I have seen some of my rights go by, but we’re still here. We’re doing the stories, we’re fighting for press freedom,” she says in an interview with AFP from Rappler’s office in suburban Manila.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Ukraine is making efforts to “restore the supply of food to the world market”, and says that progress in talks on allowing Ukraine’s grain to leave its blocked Black Sea ports is necessary to solve the global food crisis.
As they struggle to contain two fires which have burnt over 2,800 hectares of forest in Gironde, in the southwest of France, firefighters worry there is worse to come. “The weather forecast tomorrow says there will be a heatwave, which will make it easier for the fire to spread”, says the department’s fire and rescue service’s director Marc Vermeulen.
Nakhon Nayok (Thailand) (AFP) – A baby elephant had to be rescued from a manhole in central Thailand. Its mother stayed with the infant as it was unable to climb out, and had to be sedated to allow the rescue to go ahead. Unfortunately the mother then partially tumbled into the hole and had to be pulled out herself.
