HOT WEATHER IS CHANGING ASIA’S TRAVEL This summer, China that has become more popular with tourists is also looking for places to escape the heat. Dali and Lijiang, well-visited cities in Yunnan, can be as cool as 59 degrees Fahrenheit at night in the summer “Other than weekend getaways to neighboring Southeast Asian cities, all the holidays are always to places cooler than Singapore,” says Wong of the humid city-state, where temperatures routinely hover above 80 F. “Europe is unpredictable of late, and the last thing I want is to fly 13 hours and suffer in a heat wave with temperatures higher than Singapore’s.” Wong’s decisions may be personal, but they underscore a deeper trend around the world. Some travel experts have been using the buzzword “coolcations” to describe a vacation location chosen for cooler weather. And it isn’t only the tourists coping with the dangerous weather. About 75% of workers in Asia are exposed to extreme heat, including employees like food vendors and delivery drivers, who often cater to tourists, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Last month, temperatures in France soared to 104 F as a “heat dome” enveloped the country. In an unprecedented move, Paris officials asked organizers of the annual summer music festival Fete de la Musique not to sell alcohol, as dehydration and heat stroke were serious risks to attendees. In Spain, the UK, and Switzerland, temperatures hit all-time highs, prompting many outdoor attractions to close or restrict their hours. In Asia, the situation is also dire. The continent is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to the WMO. In Japan, two new records seem to be broken every year: international visitors and heat, with an all-time high temperature of 107.2 F. All five of the hottest days on record in Japan happened last summer. It prompted the country to coin a new word: kokusho-bi, or cruelly hot day. While some travelers have pivoted to traveling during shoulder seasons, it’s the northern hemisphere summer that dominates travel due to school schedules, with multiple countries in Asia also giving students extended breaks over the June-August period. The combination of relentless heat and floods of human traffic can make conditions downright unbearable. One solution for those visiting hot destinations is to go to outdoor attractions in the early morning or evening. Travel experience booking platform Get Your Guide tells CNN Travel that they’ve added more nighttime activities to meet these demands. In Asia, these “dusking” experiences can include a nighttime tour of Kyoto’s social media favorite, the bright-orange Fushimi Inari shrine, a sunset sail on the Mekong River in Thailand, or a spooky ghost-story tour of Seoul’s backroads. Bookings for activities in the 5-9 p.m. range are up 30%, the rep says, and Asia is the biggest market with a 70% uptick. Takao Nishina, who is the Japan and South Korea manager for Get Your Guide, says it’s first-time visitors and the obsessive bucket listers who are most willing to push through extreme heat to cross items off their itinerary. For the extreme travelers who are spending more time flying to a destination than visiting it, suffering through the weather is just part of the adventure. Now, he’s working to craft options that keep everybody happy — for example, moving cooking classes from an open-air market to an indoor venue, or encouraging sumo stadiums to have their tours during peak sunshine hours so people doing full-day itineraries can do outdoor stuff in the morning instead. 11th July,2026

HEAT AND FIRE GENERATE OVERLAPPING PROBLEMS Nearly 20 people are still unaccounted for after a wildfire ripped through a tinder-dry area close to Spain’s Mediterranean coast on Thursday, according to regional officials. At least 12 people were killed by the rapidly spreading blaze, and four received severe burns. The wildfire – near Almeria on the Mediterranean – is the first in Europe this year to claim multiple victims, but just one of several that have claimed thousands of hectares in recent weeks as much of southern Europe endures unprecedented heat. This week has also seen two widespread fires in France, with one in the Pyrenees forcing the evacuation of 12,000 people, as well as a major fire in central Portugal, with satellite imagery showing plumes of smoke drifting well into the Atlantic. Summer fires in southern Europe are nothing new, but they are happening earlier in the year and are of growing intensity, according to researchers. In much of France and Spain, an exceptionally wet winter left a lot of vegetation that quickly turned to tinder as three successive heatwaves sent temperatures into the high-thirties Celsius. That has led to a spike in the number of larger fires, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). To date this year, the countries of the European Union have seen 314 fires of over 30 hectares each, nearly double the 158 at the corresponding date last year, and the second highest figure since 2016. And as of July 8, they had consumed 160,000 hectares, compared to the average since 2006 of just under 100,000 hectares. “Very extreme conditions dominate a large area of western and central Europe, with the heaviest concentration across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and southeast Ireland,” according to EFFIS in a bulletin this week. Besides the immediate casualties, fires contribute to the amount of carbon dioxide and toxic smoke in the atmosphere, which can have its own deadly consequences. . Fires in August last year in Spain and Portugal led to more than 2,000 premature deaths from smoke exposure as well as unprecedented spread of fires at night, according to new research by Spanish and US scientists The total energy created by those “was similar to the annual energy production of a 1,000 MW nuclear reactor,” the researchers found. The pattern of “big fires getting bigger” is an indicator that fire intensity is increasing, they noted – with rural depopulation also a factor as more land goes untended. This may have been a factor in the Almeria fire - some victims had tried to escape by car along a track only to be surrounded by flames, according to Spanish officials. Besides the fire risk, the heat domes that trap high temperatures across Europe are having a cascade of other consequences. In France, more than 2,000 deaths during the last week of June were attributed to the heat. France saw its hottest day ever on June 24. Deaths rose 29% in the last week of June compared to the week before, according to French health minister Stéphanie Rist, who noted a “clear increase” in deaths among those over 45. Not surprisingly, more and more households in France are installing air conditioning. Only 24% of French households have air conditioning according to France’s energy transition agency – up from 18% just two years ago, but still far below the roughly 50% seen in neighboring Italy. But air conditioning units pump heat into the immediate environment, reinforcing what is known as the urban heat island effect, particularly at night. Higher river temperatures are also affecting France’s nuclear plants, which require water as a coolant. French utility EDF says generation at the Nogent nuclear plant on the River Seine will be reduced from Tuesday, for the second time this summer. Another reactor on the Garonne river in south-western France suspended production as the water temperature hit 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Farenheit). Europe’s heatwaves this year have also led to sharply reduced crop forecasts, especially for corn (maize.). Grain trade association Coceral has reduced its forecast EU and UK corn output to 52.7 ?million tons, down from 57.2 million last month. The French corn harvest, at less than 10 million tons, is expected to be the lowest in two decades. Coceral also reduced forecasts for barley and wheat production across Europe. And more tropical weather in southern Europe is contributing to an increase in diseases carried by mosquitos and other insects. A recent Italian study found that between 2013 and 2022, the risk of dengue fever epidemics in Europe rose by 56% compared to 1951–1960. “Diseases like malaria and dengue, traditionally confined to tropical zones, are now emerging in temperate and urban areas,” the authors said. 11th July,2026

ISRAELI SETTLERS ATTACK JOURNALISTS Four settlers were arrested after an attack on CNN and other journalists in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, according to Israeli Police. The journalists were near the village of Sinjil north of Ramallah to cover the one-year anniversary of the killing of Saif Musallet last July, a Palestinian-American who was beaten to death by Jewish settlers. Within minutes of arriving at the location where Musallet was killed, Israeli settlers descended on the area. As the CNN team and other journalists tried to leave, a group of four settlers blocked the road with their car and tried to keep the vehicles from moving forward. The four settlers were wielding wooden and metal rods and stones. One settler brandished a knife and tried to puncture the tires of CNN’s vehicle. The settlers then began to jump on the vehicle behind CNN’s — carrying another group of journalists — and smashed the windshield of that vehicle. Another group of settlers tried to block a separate exit route before chasing the journalists towards the town of Sinjil. When police officers and Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene, police say they arrested four suspects before locating their vehicle nearby. They seized clubs and a knife from inside the vehicle, police said. “The Israel Police and the (Israel Defense Forces) view any manifestation of violence or causing damage to property very seriously, especially when it concerns media personnel performing their work,” police said in a statement. After the killing of Musallet in July 2025, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called it a “criminal and terrorist act,” calling on authorities to investigate. But Musallet’s father told CNN no one has been arrested since the killing. This attack on journalists comes just days after US Rep. Ro Khanna was detained by settlers near the village of Turmus Ayya in the West Bank. The village has a population of thousands of Palestinian-Americans who have come under repeated attack by settlers in the area. Khanna visited the village to show solidarity with American citizens who have told CNN they feel forgotten by their government. “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding, having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned,” Khanna told Reuters. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the issue of settler violence has “blown up beyond belief.” He described the perpetrators as a group of 150 “juvenile delinquents.” He said the police and military “take actions,” but the courts in Israel “are very lenient” against those convicted of settler violence. Despite Netanyahu’s statements, the West Bank has seen a surge of settler violence – some with instances of Israeli soldiers standing idly by – in conjunction with the Israeli government rapidly expanding settlements throughout the territory. 11th July,2026

FUNERAL OF IRAN'S LATE SUPREME LEADER More than four months after he was killed by US-Israeli strikes at the onset of the war, Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was buried yesterday, following a dayslong public funeral attended by waves of mourners Earlier today, the country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei thanked the “tens of millions” of people he said attended the funeral ceremonies in a purported message released by Iranian media. He has yet to appear publicly since the killing of his father and predecessor. 11th July,2026

BANTAMA PROCESS MARRED BY VIOLENCE Three people have been arrested after Violence disrupted the Bantama New Patriotic Party (NPP) Constituency Executive Elections in Kumasi on Saturday One of the election officers sustained injury to the foot and was rushed to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. The arrested individuals have been identified as Shaibu Bamba, Constituency Organiser, and Abu, Adoato Polling Station Chairman while the third person is yet to be identified Mr Samuel Dattoh Kwaah, Director of Electoral Services at the EC, told the Ghana News Agency on Friday that the Commission had completed all necessary preparations, including logistics, election materials and personnel deployment. “The EC is ready for the election on Saturday and Sunday,” he said, adding: “All the preparations are underway.” Mr Kwaah said the number of voting centres had been increased from 276 constituencies to 385 to accommodate constituencies with large numbers of delegates. “We have 276 constituencies, but some of the constituencies are huge, so we have split those centres. Instead of 276 voting centres, we are going to have 385 voting centres,” he said. 11th July,2026

TOYOTA VOXY CRASHES ON WIAWSO-ASAWINSO HIGHWAY One person is dead while several others have sustained critical injuries following a fatal road accident involving a Toyota Voxy on the sefwi Wiawso - Asawinso Highway in the Western North Region. The accident occurred between 3:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. on Thursday on the stretch between communities 81 and 82. According to eyewitnesses, the commercial Toyota Voxy had picked up eight passengers from Asawinso and was travelling to Anyanfuri when the driver attempted to swerve potholes on the highway. "The driver tried to avoid a deep pothole but lost control of the vehicle. It veered off the road, somersaulted into the bush, crashed into a culvert and plunged into a nearby stream," an eyewitness recounted. A female passenger died instantly, while the driver and the seven other passengers sustained various degrees of injury. "The impact was very severe. We rushed to the scene to rescue the victims before they were transported to the Asafo Government Hospital for treatment," another eyewitness said. Residents and motorists blamed the poor condition of the Wiawso Asawinso Highway for the crash. The potholes on this stretch have become death traps. We are appealing to the authorities to rehabilitate the road before more lives are lost," a resident appealed. 11th July,2026

DEMOLITION OF KORLE BU'S ‘DEATH TRAP’ MATERNITY BLOCK President John Dramani Mahama has directed the demolition of the ageing Gordon-Guggisberg maternity block at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, labeling the structural integrity of the facility a dangerous "death trap" for both patients and healthcare workers Speaking on Thursday, July 9, 2026, at the commissioning of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory, the President revealed that the old building had deteriorated beyond repair. To prevent any disruption to maternal healthcare, the government has launched the procurement process to construct an ultra-modern replacement maternity block. This initiative forms part of a broader national strategy to elevate specialist healthcare delivery and provide safer medical facilities. The intervention is being driven by the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, popularly known as "Mahama Cares." According to the President, the fund’s mandate has been expanded after realizing that merely financing treatments was insufficient if the physical infrastructure did not exist to support patients. The trust fund will now actively finance the development of specialist facilities, medical equipment acquisition, and professional healthcare training. In tandem with these infrastructure upgrades, President Mahama announced that Cabinet has approved the recruitment and training of 500 critical care nurses. The initial phase of this training program is currently underway at Korle Bu and will soon expand to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. Furthermore, to address the historic issue of poorly maintained infrastructure, the government has established the Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited. Acting as a subsidiary of the Trust Fund, this entity will oversee the maintenance and replacement of specialized medical equipment across public hospitals. Reflecting on past retooling errors, Mahama concluded, 11th July,2026

MAHAMA DIRECTS ZOOMLION President John Dramani Mahama has directed the immediate opening and operationalization of six transfer stations that were built more than nine years ago to support the disposal of refuse collected during the national cleanup exercise He said this is to prevent the waste from returning into the drains after any rainfall. The directive follows an appeal from the Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, for designated dumping points to be made available for waste removed from drainage channels during the post-flood clean-up exercise on July 11 Speaking on day two of the national cleaning exercise, President Mahama said the move was necessary to address a recurring challenge where waste collected from drains is left by roadsides and later washed back into the drainage systems. Yesterday one of the directives I gave was that in the past we do these cleanups, we take all the garbage out of the gutters, but we don't follow up and come and collect the garbage that is by the roadside.And so when the rain falls it just washes all the dirt back in. And so today we're going to concentrate on scooping all that garbage we took out of the gutters into these big trucks that you see there so that they'll take them to the dump sites and go and dump them. But we know that if you look at the city and all the garbage we've taken out, we cannot do it in one day.So, we'll all help to do it today but tomorrow the army and the other agencies will continue until we're able to clear all the garbage that was taken out of the drains. We've had six transfer stations that were built more than nine years ago. Unfortunately, they were not put into operation. So, we've asked the contractor to open the transfer stations, that's Zoomlion, so that the Aboboyas and others can take the garbage to the transfer stations," he stated. 11th July,2026