AP Digital News: Progress Cited in Fight Against Wildfires 13 July

Reuters takes a look back at a devastating week of wildfires in Southern California.

Despite efforts around the world, the toll from malaria remains stubbornly high with more than a million people dying each year worldwide, most of them children. Ninety percent of victims are African. The problem is acute in Ghana where few people have access to anti-malaria drugs or mosquito nets. An AFPTV report.

Poland is to get a new government after the right-wing premier steps down on Monday, to be replaced by the head of the victorious liberal party, Donald Tusk. Nurses and medical staff who have been striking for months are delighted by the change. They expect from his Civic Platform nothing less than a full reform of the nation's public health system. Voiced report.

News from Reuters

The Iraqi army has launched raids in Basra where rival factions of the Shi'ite majority and criminal gangs are competing for control of the country's second city whose oil fields are the government's main source of revenue.

A wildfire that began in a field of sagebrush has burned at least 19 homes and claimed one woman's life in Idaho, after strong winds blew flames up a ridge and into a Boise neighborhood. (Aug. 26)

More than 200 people are reported killed and hundreds more wounded in fighting across southern Iraq and in the capital, Baghdad, since the operation against followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was launched five days ago.

In Falaise, the anchor point is pounded by Canadian artillery, then their tanks and infantry drive into town and mop up the snipers...Farther East, at St. Mars La Brier, 215 Soviet women and girls who were brought to France as slave labour, and subjected to beatings by the Nazis when they resisted, are liberated... At Chartres, the Yanks drive out the Nazis, using small arms to spare damage to the historic cathedral...In southern France, the pent-up anger of the French manifests itself. Attractive French girls who have collaborated with the enemy have their heads shaved as the townspeople revile them... At St Malo, fanatical German defenders of this ancient fortress surrender only after their ammunition and brandy have been consumed. Showers of air bombs speed their capitulation.

Hundreds of Egyptians turned out to march in the UN-organised Global Walk Against Hunger on Sunday. It's a pressing issue in the north African country, where millions are suffering from rising food prices and struggling to provide their families with basic staples like rice and bread.

Dozens of people have been arrested at an oppostion protest against the landslide presidential election victory of Dmitry Medvedev. More than 100 police, some in full riot gear, arrested dozens of protesters taking part in the unauthorised demonstration following Sunday's poll won by President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor.