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Most explanations of the European Union start with three institutions: the Commission, the Council, and the Parliament. That framing is missing something. There are actually four bodies in play, because “the Council” is used for two entirely different things, and mixing them up is the single most common way people get the EU wrong. … Read more
Fishers on Sierra Leone’s Sherbo Island, and at Tombo harbour near the capital Freetown, say their catches have fallen sharply in recent years, and nearly all of them point to the same cause: large foreign trawlers entering waters set aside for small-scale fishing. Thomas Turay, president of Sierra Leone’s Fishermen’s Union, told the BBC in reporting published … Read more
Nearly 2,000 US military personnel are supporting earthquake relief operations in Venezuela following the twin 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes that struck the country’s Caribbean coast on June 24, 2026, according to US Southern Command. Officials reported the death toll had risen past 2,900 by early July, with more than 16,000 injured and tens of … Read more
The United States declined to renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement in its current form at the pact’s first mandatory six-year review on July 1, 2026. In a statement, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the agreement was not being extended and pointed to what Washington calls its shortcomings and to US trade deficits with both neighbors. Mexico … Read more
Russia banned all diesel exports on July 8, 2026, after months of Ukrainian drone strikes on its refineries triggered fuel shortages and hours-long lines at gas stations across the country. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced the ban, running through July 31, at a televised government meeting with President Vladimir Putin, saying it would free … Read more
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Damascus on July 6, 2026, becoming the first Western European head of state to visit Syria since rebel forces led by Ahmad al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Over two days, Macron and al-Sharaa restored full diplomatic ties, severed for more than a decade, and signed a package … Read more
The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread beyond its epicenter in Ituri province, with suspected cases reported in the previously unaffected provinces of Tshopo and Haut-Uele and the confirmed death toll passing 600 in early July 2026. Confirmed cases nationwide had climbed past 1,750 by mid-July. The Africa Centres … Read more
Hamas announced on July 6, 2026 that it was dissolving the body that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, clearing a formal path for a Palestinian technocratic committee to take over civilian administration. Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run government media office, said the chairman of the governing Emergency Committee, Mohammed al-Farra, had resigned, … Read more
Germany’s Alternative for Germany party is polling at roughly 41 to 42 percent in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of the state’s September 6, 2026 election, more than double its 2021 result and, for the first time in a German state, within reach of an outright parliamentary majority. The Christian Democratic Union, which has led the state government under … Read more
The International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee on July 7, 2026, and recommended that international federations drop the restrictions that had kept Russian athletes out of major competition or confined them to neutral status since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The move does not by itself put Russians back … Read more