More than two dozen crew members are unaccounted for after their ship broke into two during a typhoon in the South China Sea, with rescuers scrambling to find them, officials say. An engineering vessel that was 160 nautical miles southwest of Hong Kong “suffered substantial damage and broke into two pieces” and the 30-member crew abandoned ship, according to the Hong Kong Government Flying Service.
Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accuses Russia of engaging in state “terror” as he blames Moscow for missile strikes on a southern resort town that left at least 21 dead and dozens wounded. Missiles slammed into an apartment building and a recreation centre in the town of Sergiyvka about 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Black Sea port of Odessa, which has become a strategic flashpoint in the now more than four-month-old war.
Tunceli (Turkey) (AFP) – In Turkish mountains so high the silver clouds almost touch the top of their heads, homesick Afghan shepherds prepare their flocks for a good shear. Kurds in the eastern Mercan Valley have been gradually replaced by Afghans, who fled here by foot and truck across Iran from the poverty and bloodshed back home.
Tobruk (Libya) (AFP) – IMAGES Protesters light a fire inside Libya’s parliament building in the eastern city of Tobruk, while demonstrating against deteriorating living conditions and political deadlock.
Odessa Oblast (Ukraine) (AFP) – Aerial footage of a building destroyed by missile strikes that killed at least 21 people and injured dozens in Ukraine’s Odessa region.
London (AFP) – Speaking ahead of the 25th anniversary of Britain’s transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that Beijing ‘has been failing to comply with its obligations’ to the territory under the ‘one country, two systems’ pledge which it made in 1997. Johnson says this threatens ‘the rights and freedoms of Hong Kongers, and the continued progress and prosperity of their home’, but that Britain will do ‘all it can to hold China to its commitments’.
Aynak (Afghanistan) (AFP) – About 40 kilometres southeast of Kabul, hidden in immense rocky peaks, an ancient Buddhist city is in danger of disappearing forever, swallowed up by the exploitation of one of the world’s largest copper deposits by a Chinese consortium.
An Nayrab (Syria) (AFP) – Timelapse images show the Milky Way galaxy glimmering in the night sky as it eerily lights up an abandoned and destroyed amusement park on the frontline between regime forces and rebel fighters, in the town of al-Nayrab, in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region.
Dover (United States) (AFP) – Every May and June, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs come ashore in the Delaware Bay, on the East Coast of the United States, to spawn at high tide. Horseshoe crabs are vital for the safety of human vaccines because their blood contains cells that the biomedical industry uses to test vaccines.
Sloviansk (Ukraine) (AFP) – While some farms near the frontline in eastern Ukraine have been abandoned due to the fighting, shepherds Valentyna Gakova and her son are still looking after their goats in Sloviansk.
