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🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Japan ex-PM Shinzo Abe shot dead at meeting: Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died after he was shot at twice during a political campaign event in the southern city of Nara. The 41-year-old shooter, who used a handmade gun and is believed to have served in Japan’s navy, is being held in custody.

• The war in Ukraine dominates G20 foreign ministers talks: At the G20 foreign ministers summit in Bali, Indonesia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned attendants’ “frenzied criticism” of the war in Ukraine instead of dealing with the world economy. His U.S. counterpart Anthony Blinken urged him to let Ukrainian grain out of the country, and Lavrov was criticized by Germany’s Annalena Baerbock for leaving sessions early or not attending, thus blocking dialogue.

• Race for new British PM begins: A dozen candidates, ranging from senior figures to lesser known members of parliament, have shown interest in replacing Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister following his resignation. While the process could take weeks or months, Johnson’s opponents have urged him to leave office immediately.

• Derek Chauvin sentenced to jail: Derek Chauvin, the U.S. police officer whose murder of George Floyd prompted the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, has been sentenced to 21 years in jail for violating Floyd’s civil rights.

• Beijing imposes vaccine mandate: Beijing has introduced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for residents to enter public venues such as cinemas, museums, stadiums and gyms. The measure, which will be effective from July 11, is an attempt to contain a highly contagious Omicron subvariant and is the first mandate of this kind in a city in mainland China.

• Sepp Blatter and Platini not guilty: FIFA’s former president Sepp Blatter and French football legend Michel Platini have been found not guilty of corruption by a Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. They faced up to five years in jail for fraud and forgery charges.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Japan’s Hokkaido Shimbun has issued a special edition of its daily newspaper to report on the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The 67-year-old politician was shot twice while giving a speech at a campaign event, in the southern city of Nara.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

£1,482,000

A one-off recording, made in March 2021, of Bob Dylan’s hit song “Blowin’ in the Wind” sold for almost £1.5m ($1.75m) at auction by Christie’s in London on Thursday. It is the first new studio recording of the song since it was written in 1962, and it was made with T Bone Burnett, Dylan’s longtime collaborator. The recording was offered on Ionic Original, a new high-end audio medium consisting of lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

LGBTQ+ International: Lebanon crackdown, 50 years of London Pride — and the week’s other top news

Indigenous pride, a Ukrainian drag queen carpenter, an in-flight, same-sex marriage proposal, and plenty of other stories from around the world are featured in our latest edition of LGBTQ+ International.

🇧🇴🇦🇷 The first International March of Sexual and Gender Diversity was celebrated in the border cities of Villazón, Bolivia and La Quiaca, Argentina. Indigenous communities were front and center at an event demanding basic human rights. "We were all dark skinned marching and that was the most beautiful thing, breaking the borders with indigenous queerness," activist Alexis Méndez told Agencia Presentes. Rosalinda Ancasi, the first openly trans woman from La Quiaca and co-organizer of the event, said the aim of the weekend march on the border was to “help us achieve greater visibility and our demands gain strength.”

⚰️ Artur Ozerov from Kyiv is one of hundreds of thousands of volunteers helping the Ukrainian army and civilians during the war. The Ukrainian news outlet Novoe Vremya featured a profile of Ozerov, a Ukrainian civil servant, owner of an apiary near Kyiv, and a drag queen artist. About ten days after the full-scale invasion, Ozerov and his colleagues were called on by the army to help. Since he was good with wood and making frames and beehives for his apiary, it fell to Ozerov to begin making coffins. He soon realized that some of them were destined for Bucha, the suburb of Kyiv where an untold number of civilians were massacred in alleged Russian war crimes.

🎉 Last weekend, over 1.5 million people flocked to London for Pride celebrations, making it the most attended Pride in British history. This year’s celebrations also marked the 50th anniversary of London’s first Pride march. Labour member of Parliament Emily Thornberry took to Twitter: “50 years ago, to be at a demonstration like this was to take your life into your own hands. And actually, it was a protest, and it was also about just being proud of yourself, being confident, and looking the world in the eye and going ‘yeah, I’m different, so what?’”

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📣 VERBATIM

Let them try.

— “We hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a warning to the West and Ukraine on Thursday, adding that the war could last until the “last Ukrainian is left standing.” Putin was speaking during a meeting with the heads of the State Duma party factions which aired on state media television Russia-24.