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Madrid (AFP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson meet during the NATO summit in Madrid. IMAGES

Madrid (AFP) – “We meet in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since the Second World War” says NATO secretary general Stoltenberg at the NATO summit in Madrid, as the alliance overhauls its defences in response to the war on Ukraine.

Hong Kong (AFP) – Government estimates show hundreds of thousands of people quit Hong Kong in the years that preceded the handover for a new life overseas — many citing fears of a future under Beijing’s thumb. As the territory celebrates the handover’s 25th anniversary on Friday, with citywide posters proclaiming “a new era of stability, prosperity and opportunity”, another exodus is underway.

Manila (AFP) – Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa’s news company Rappler was ordered Wednesday to shut down, a day before President Rodrigo Duterte is due to leave office, but she vows to keep the site running.

Mountain View (United States) (AFP) – After five years of construction, Google opened its new Bay View Campus to workers this week. Scaled with solar panels, the building stands at 1.1 million square feet, next to corporate housing and the Googleplex. The company is currently embracing a hybrid model between work-from-home and in the office but expects its new campus to quickly fill by a growing workforce.

Bangkok (AFP) – Thai prisoners clean Bangkok’s congested drains for the first time in two years. Pre-pandemic convicts volunteer to clear the sewers of Thailand’s capital, earning time off their sentences. But fears of spreading the virus meant the grubby work has been done by city authorities and workers, until now.

Manila (AFP) – Philippines’ Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa said Wednesday it was “business as usual” for Rappler, despite an order for the news site she co-founded to shut down. “We continue to work, it is business as usual,” Ressa told reporters.

Kremenchuk (Ukraine) (AFP) – “It’s terrible beyond words. How many people were there. Rush hour, people were returning from work,” says a Kremenchuk resident. Dozens were injured and many are still missing after the strike set off a blaze inside a shopping centre in Kremenchuk on Monday. The Russian army claimed Tuesday it had hit a nearby weapons depot with the explosion sparking the blaze at the shopping centre, which according to Moscow was “not operational” at the time. 

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – “The Russian missile hit this very object, purposefully. Obviously, that was the order. It is obvious that Russian assassins received such coordinates for this missile. They wanted to kill as many people as possible in a peaceful city, in a regular shopping mall,” says Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. He adds that the total number of Russian missiles that have hit Ukrainian cities is 2,811. 

Elmau Castle (Germany) (AFP) – France’s President Emmanuel Macron says he will not use the description of a “state sponsor of terrorism” on Russia, when asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for Russia to be branded as such. “We don’t need any qualification whatsoever to carry these sanctions” against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, he says.