The French President Emmanuel Macron has told political leaders in Lebanon that they need to fight corruption and undertake reform in the wake of the explosion that devastated Beirut on Tuesday. Crowds chanted angry denunciations at their political leaders who they blame for the disaster.
Workers in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang are turning a sports stadium into a field hospital to deal with coronavirus patients in the country's new virus epicenter. Vietnam was able to successfully contain the virus for months, but Da Nang has seen a surge in confirmed cases in the last few weeks.
The main opposition candidates contending against Belarus's long-standing president Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday's election has cancelled at short notice a major rally at Minsk. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's team said they were not prepared to provoke people given that the authority had decided to hold another event in the same park at the same time.
Mexico's food and beverage industry has condemned a decision by a Mexican state to ban the sale of junk food and sugary drinks to children. The confederation said it would have a negative impact on the economy.
For the 20th week in a row, more than a million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits as the coronavirus pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on the economy. About 16 million workers are still receiving benefits.
Three Ugandans have sued the country’s drug authority and the international organization Marie Stopes after using what they say were defective condoms. They argued that as a result, one of them contracted HIV, another became ill with gonorrhea, and a woman got pregnant.
The EU’s earth observation program Copernicus says Arctic's sea ice in July was at a joint lowest level ever recorded for the month. It said it was nearly 27% down on the average extend recorded over the last four decades.
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