1. NSA caught spying on French presidents

    French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned* the U.S. ambassador over leaked documents that suggest her government spied on President Francois Hollande and two predecessors.

    The sources said that U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley had been summoned for a meeting to discuss the documents published by WikiLeaks on June 23.

    The documents — labeled “Top Secret” and apparently revealing spying on Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Hollande from 2006 to 2012 — were posted online by WikiLeaks.

    2. MERS outbreak at crossroads

    South Korea’s health ministry said the outbreak of MERS was at a crossroads, backing off from its earlier view that the spread of the virus had leveled off*.

    About half the 179 infections in the country have been traced to the prestigious hospital, including some of this week’s new cases.

    “We are at a crossroads, whether this is going to spread further or not,” Kwon Deok-cheol, the health ministry’s chief policy official, told a news briefing on June 24. “As of now we can’t answer that part because additional cases have occurred, although we thought until last weekend it had leveled off,” he said when asked if there was any change in its earlier view that the outbreak had settled.

    3. Heat wave kills at least 749 in Pakistan

    An official in Pakistan said at least 749 people had been killed due to a scorching* heat wave, though temperatures have begun to drop in the country.

    The hardest-hit city was Karachi. The port city has seen temperatures soar to 45 degrees Celsius. Meteorologists said the heat wave was the worst in at least a decade.

    Hours-long power outages, little running water and the majority of people fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan had worsened the situation.

    4. Floods leave 41 dead in western India

    Flash flooding triggered by torrential rains has killed 41 people in India’s western Gujarat state, as the annual monsoon season hit the country, reports said on June 25.

    Authorities have evacuated more than 10,000 residents mainly from coastal areas of Gujarat following heavy rains in the last 24 hours.

    The coastal district of Amreli was the worst affected, with 36 people killed in flood-related incidents, a duty officer at the state’s disaster control room said.

    5. ‘Corpse flower’ blossoms

    One of the world’s biggest and smelliest flowers has finally blossomed at a zoo — treating visitors to the stench* of rotting meat.

    The Titan Arum was planted at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park in Devon, Britain, in 2003 and has been cared for by gardeners ever since.

    The flower, which is green on the outside and bright red inside with ribbed sides and a frilled* edge, is only expected to last for a day.

    6. Gruesome ‘selfie’ emerges

    French authorities were transferring the man suspected of beheading his boss in an alleged jihadist attack to Paris on Sunday, as it emerged he sent a macabre “selfie” of the decapitation*.

    Anti-terror police will grill* the suspect, Yassin Salhi, a 35-year-old father of three, as they search for clues and a motive for the attack on a gas warehouse near France’s second city of Lyon.

    After several hours of silence, Salhi has begun to open up to investigators about the assault, which came six months after 17 were killed in Islamist attacks in Paris that began with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.(SD-Agencies)