📸 Around the world this week in 20 pictures

PICTORIAL

Here is our selection of pictures from around the world on Tuesday (July 14):

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Fireworks explode above the Eiffel Tower as part of the annual Bastille Day celebrations in France's capital Paris. France held a reduced version of its traditional Bastille Day parade this year due to safety measures over the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic, and with the country's national day celebrations including a homage to health workers and others fighting the outbreak.

Members of the French Genrdarmerie Nationale wearing protective facemasks arrived prior to the annual Bastille Day military ceremony on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) greeted World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (L) at the end of the annual Bastille Day military ceremony on the Place de la Concorde.

Before the closing ceremony, French elite acrobatic flying team "Patrouille de France" (PAF) performed a flying display of the French national flag over the Louvre pyramid designed by Chinese architect Ieoh Ming Pei.

Meanwhile, these villagers travelled on a boat in the flood-affected area of Gagalmari village in Morigaon district of Assam state in northeastern India.

In Indonesia, villagers walked through a flooded area in Radda village in North Luwu regency, South Sulawesi, after three rivers overflowed due to torrential rains. At least 15 people died and dozens others were missing after flash floods caused by torrential rains left hundreds of houses buried in mud in the country, authorities said.

Still in southern Asia, this man walked through flooded waters in Sunamgong, Bangladesh. Almost four million people have been hit by monsoon floods in South Asia, officials said on Tuesday, with a third of Bangladesh already underwater from some of the heaviest rains in a decade.

These residents danced next to the Yangtze River in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Various parts of China have also been hit by continuous downpours since June, with the damage adding pressure to a domestic economy already hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Here, Chinese soldiers built an emergency levee near the Poyang Lake to contain flooding due to torrential rains in Jiujiang in China's central Jiangxi province. The vast Yangtze drainage area has been lashed by torrential rains since last month, leaving 141 people dead or missing and forcing the evacuation of millions more across several provinces.

These residents wearing face masks were seen next to the Yangtze River in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.

Meanwhile, the sun set along 42nd Street, during the so called "Manhattanhenge", on Monday in New York City. The so-called Manhattanhenge happens four times each year, when the sun rises or sets in New York City parallel to the city street grid in Manhattan.

Police personnel clashed with activists of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as they shouted slogans and protested during a strike demanding the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for an investigation over the death of BJP MLA Debendra Nath Roy in Hemtabad, in Siliguri.

This protester raised a fist during a demonstration in the French capital Paris, as part of a nationwide day of protests by health workers to demand better work conditions. Health care workers protested in France on the country's national day to demand more for their sector a day after the government and unions signed an agreement giving over eight billion euros in pay rises, with the prime minister admitting the move was overdue in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Elsewhere, a medical worker wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) gear collected a swab sample from a man to test for the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The country has reported just 2,617 cases with 11 deaths, but army chief Shavendra Silva said nearly half the 1,100 residents and staff at a drug rehab facility near the capital had tested positive in the past week, and some visitors may also have been infected.

In India, this health worker wearing PPE gear sat at the entrance of a free testing centre for the COVID-19 coronavirus, at a government primary school in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad. India has almost 880,000 virus cases and more than 23,000 dead, and experts say the peak is still weeks away.

In Malaysia, customers ate lunch at a restaurant with tables in a stream of a river in Kampung Kemensah on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Here, US actor Johnny Depp was seen arriving to attend the sixth day of his libel trial against News Group Newspapers (NGN), at the High Court in London. The Hollywood star is suing the publishers of The Sun and the author of the article for the claims that called him a "wife-beater" in April 2018.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump arrived to deliver a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.

In Syria, a fireball erupted from the site of an explosion reportedly targeting a joint Turkis-Russian patrol on the strategic M4 highway, near the town of Ariha in the rebel-held northwestern Idlib province.

It was a different kind of fireball in Paris, as this fire eater performed as nightclub workers demonstrated on Sunday near the health ministry to ask the reopening of their venues. - Nightclubs closure and summer festival cancellations have been imposed as part of lockdown measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic, while many sectors in France have seen their restrictions progressively lifted.

(Compiled by Joseph Kizza)