👋 Kuzu-zangpo la!*
Welcome to Friday, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Venezuela’s Supreme Court ratifies President Nicolas Maduro’s reelection, and the world’s second largest diamond is found in Botswana. Meanwhile, Russian daily Kommersant correspondent Alexander Chernykh reports from the Kursk front line, where Russian volunteer doctors are saving wounded soldiers in a makeshift clinic.
[*Dzongkha - Bhutan]
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Emmanuel Macron’s ominous silhouette is featured on the front page of Libération, as the Paris-based daily warns the French president with a punny headline that both the summer “vacation” and the “power vacuum” are over. Five weeks after his party was defeated in the second round of snap legislative elections, and with the Olympic “political truce” over, Macron is under pressure to form a new government. He is beginning talks today with the leaders of the different parties constituting the Parliament to help him choose the next prime minister.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Indian PM arrives in Kyiv. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kyiv on Friday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Modi met with representatives of the Indian diaspora after arriving, and his visit will focus on boosting economic ties and cooperation between the two countries. Ahead of his “historic” visit, Modi stated India’s support “for restoration of peace and stability as soon as possible.” Get an insight on the stakes of the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in this article from Important stories.
• Israeli negotiators arrive in Cairo for ceasefire talks. The Israeli delegation has arrived in Cairo for the next round of ceasefire talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The talks will be mediated by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar and include the issue of the Egypt-Gaza border. Meanwhile the UN’s OCHA agency reports that about 90% of Gaza residents have been displaced by Israeli orders since October. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees also announced it will begin vaccinating children against polio at the end of the month, as fear of an outbreak grows. Read the story of a displaced Palestinian family in this piece by Feda Ziyadh for Daraj.
• Kamala Harris accepts Democratic presidential nomination. On the last day of the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris accepted her party’s presidential nomination, pledging a “new way forward” in her speech. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she said to a roaring crowd. The current vice president also used her speech to paint herself in contrast to Donald Trump, calling the former president an “unserious man.”
• Venezuela’s Supreme Court backs Maduro. The Venezuelan Supreme Court ratified President Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the latest presidential election. The contested July 28 vote had sparked protests and international criticism, as full tallies of the votes still haven’t been published despite a push from the opposition and many Western countries. “Sovereignty rests with the people and is intransferable,” said opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, calling the Supreme Court’s decision “null.” To learn more on the contested presidential election, we offer this piece by Rosendo Fraga for Clarín.
• All bodies of sunken Sicily yacht found. Italian media reports that the sixth and final missing body of the luxury yacht wreck has been found and identified as that of 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, daughter of tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch. The other five bodies were retrieved on Wednesday on the shore, following the sinking of the billionaire’s yacht off the Sicilian coast. The ship was caught in a storm on Monday and 15 of the 22 passengers survived the incident.
• World’s first lung cancer vaccine launched for trial. Seven countries will take part in the phase 1 clinical trial of the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine. Lung cancer accounts for 1.8 million deaths every year, making it the world’s leading cause of cancer death. About 130 patients will be enrolled in the trial, alongside immunotherapy treatments.
• Gonna make you a ChatGPT trailer you can refuse. "We screwed up. We are sorry," Lionsgate said in a statement after it recalled the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's sci-fi film Megalopolis. The trailer featured fabricated, AI-generated quotes attributed to deceased movie critics including Andrew Sarris and Roger Ebert.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
On Kursk's front lines, with the Russian doctors volunteering in "hell"
Fighting in the Kursk Oblast — following Ukraine's incursion into the region — is not abating, and volunteers from across Russia are coming to help: bringing goods and food, evacuating residents and providing medical assistance. Kommersant correspondent Alexander Chernykh visited a makeshift clinic and witnessed how volunteer doctors are saving wounded soldiers near the front line.
🏠 I can't reveal where this house is. I can't take pictures of it from the outside. I can't mention the approximate distance to Kursk, Sudzha or Kurchatov in the article. We can't publish even a bit of information about it — any little thing can become a landmark. Just know: Somewhere in the middle of the Kursk region, there is a house where lives are being saved. The leader here is Gel, a great, mighty bearded man. If volunteers ask what they need to bring, Gel laughs: "Good camouflage clothes, size 64." When he enters the house, he fills the entire room — first with his belly, and then with clouds of white smoke.
🩺 Yamal, a young man with a thick wheat-colored mustache in a striped shirt, conducts the tour of the house. “We have a medical center for stabilizing the wounded here,” he says. “We help both civilians and military personnel — our brothers who are now, to put it mildly, in hell.” “This is how it all works. Our sorting post is located closer to the active combat zone." "The lightly wounded go on calmly to one of the distant hospitals, and the severe and moderate ones are brought here first. Here, volunteer doctors provide the necessary assistance for them to achieve a stable condition. Our guys then deliver them to the nearest hospital,” Yamal explains.
🫥 "We provided security; we have organized firing points, and guys with a permit for smoothbore weapons are on duty. Volunteer doctors, also from other regions, came to us. They bring us medicine, bandages, food, water — all this exclusively through volunteer initiatives. And now they are saving lives here. Well, you will see for yourself when the wounded are brought in.” I look around. It’s midday, but the house is dim. The curtains in all the windows are closed tightly, the doorway is covered with a carpet. “Blackout,” Yamal explains. “Doctors often work at night, under lamps. We can’t let anyone notice a strip of light from the outside.”
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