Paktik (Afghanistan) (AFP) – Afghan government helicopters and trucks deliver aid, headed to areas hardest hit by Wednesday’s earthquake, including Barmal and Gayan in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province. Afghanistan’s deadliest earthquake in more than two decades poses a huge logistical challenge for the new Taliban government, which has isolated itself from much of the world by introducing hardline rule.
Thiruvananthapuram (India) (AFP) – Old public transport buses are given a new life at a primary school in India’s Kerala state. Once destined for the junkyard, they are now turned into activity rooms for children between the ages of three and five through the “Education on Wheels” initiative by the Thiruvananthapuram local government. The initiative seeks to assist schools with shortage of learning space for students. The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) donated the two scrapped buses which will be converted into air-conditioned rooms fitted with televisions, speakers, and perhaps even Wi-Fi if needed. To renovate one bus takes four days and costs under $4,000. DURATION: 01:19
Havana (AFP) – Ale, a baby white rhino born on June 9 in Havana, strolls curiously with his mother Katherine through the African grassland at the National Zoo of Cuba. DURATION: 00:30
Wakefield (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Labour Party candidate Simon Lightwood wins a UK parliamentary by-election in Wakefield, taking back the northern England constituency right from the Conservatives who also lost a seat in Tiverton and Honiton to the centrist Liberal Democrats, in twin results set to pile new pressure on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. DURATION: 00:23
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – “I believe this is what will always be the starting point of Europe’s new history. Europe without divisions,” President Volodymyr Zelensky says as the European Union decides to grant Ukraine official EU candidate status. DURATION: 01:02
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticises the refusal of Israel’s government to sanction Russia, during an address by the Jewish leader to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Rahat (Israel) (AFP) – A rare ancient mosque has been excavated in the Bedouin town of Rahat, in the southern Negev desert of Israel. Officials from the country’s Antiquities Authority says the discovery sheds light on the region’s transition from Christianity to Islam.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is pulling out the stops to secure a positive response to Kyiv’s application for “candidate status” to join the EU. “Today I spoke with 11 leaders,” he says.
Bermal District (Afghanistan) (AFP) – “When I came out of my house it was all quiet because all the people were buried under their homes”: Zaitullah Ghurziwal was awake when an earthquake in eastern Afghanistan destroyed his home.
Qingyuan (China) (AFP) – Buildings and streets lie inundated in the flood-stricken southern Chinese city of Qingyuan after heavy rains pushed water levels in the Pearl River delta to their highest in almost a century.
