Sri Lanka's acting president renewed the country's state of emergency Monday ahead of a parliamentary vote to pick a new head of state -- a poll in which he is a leading candidate.. A state of emergency allows troops to arrest and detain suspects, and the president to make regulations overriding existing laws to deal with any unrest.
His hair is neatly combed but his cheeks are sunken and veins visible on his gaunt frame: like many Sri Lankans, Milton Pereira and his family cannot afford to buy enough food.. In its latest assessment, it said more than five out of every six families were either skipping meals, eating less or buying worse food.
France was on high alert on Monday as the peak of a punishing heatwave gripped the country, while wildfires raging in parts of southwest Europe showed no sign of abating.. The heatwave is the second to engulf parts of southwest Europe in weeks, and blazes burning in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have destroyed thousands of hectares of land and forced thousands of residents and holidaymakers to flee.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan called again Monday for an early national election after his party seized control of the state assembly in Punjab, the country's most populous province.. The Punjab assembly vote was called after the election commission disqualified 20 members of the PTI for switching party loyalties.
China's banking regulator has urged lenders to extend more credit to real estate developers, as a growing number of homebuyers withhold mortgage payments on unfinished housing projects across 50 cities.. China's Banking and Regulatory Insurance Commission urged banks to "effectively meet the reasonable financing needs of real estate companies, vigorously support rental housing construction" and support project mergers and acquisitions, a representative said in a state media interview published Sunday.
Global aviation's Farnborough airshow opens Monday amid a sweltering heatwave, with the sector aided by a modest recovery in air traffic and with Ukraine boosting defence budgets.. "This is the first major global airshow for three years since Paris 2019," Farnborough chief executive Gareth Rogers told AFP. The biennial Farnborough show was cancelled in 2020 as the Covid health crisis grounded aircraft and ravaged the sector.
Texas state lawmakers on Sunday slammed law enforcement's slow response to the shooting in Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, saying more decisive action could have saved lives.. According to the text, which does not incriminate certain police teams over others, law enforcement officers "failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday sacked his chief prosecutor and the head of the country's security agency in the largest government shakeup since the start of Russia's invasion nearly five months ago.. Zelensky said he was firing Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova and security chief Ivan Bakanov amid a high number of cases of suspected treason by Ukrainian law enforcement officials.
Celebrity couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got married this weekend in Las Vegas, 18 years after their first romance failed, court records showed.. The couple tied the knot Saturday, according to a marriage license they filed in Clark County, Nevada, that was seen by AFP. It lists the parties to the nuptials as Affleck, Benjamin Geza and Lopez, Jennifer and gives the latter's "new name" as Affleck, Jennifer.
The European Union will discuss tightening sanctions against Russia on Monday, as Kyiv accused Moscow of launching fresh strikes on multiple residential areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.. The fresh strikes came after Moscow announced that it would step up its military operations and Kyiv accused Russia of installing missile launchers at Europe's largest nuclear plant.
