Portal:Current events/2020 July 29

• Yemeni Civil War, Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen; Yemeni peace process
  • The separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) announces it is giving up its aspiration of self-rule in Yemen to implement a stalled peace deal brokered by Saudi Arabia. A spokesman for the group says they have "achieved their goal". The STC believes in establishing an independent state in southern Yemen similar to the one that existed between 1967 and 1990. (AP)
• Syrian civil war
  • The U.S. imposes further sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his 19-year-old son Hafez, and warns that it will also sanction anyone who engages with the government in Damascus. Kelly Craft, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says the sanctions are not intended to harm civilians and that they do not target humanitarian aid. (Reuters)

• Archeologists at Stonehenge pinpoint the origin of the structure's large Sarsen stones to a site 25 kilometers (16 mi) north near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. (BBC News)

• Cuba loosens some regulations on state-run companies and farmers, and allows for U.S. dollars to be used in internal trade, as the country seeks to revitalize its economy in the midst of both the COVID-19 pandemic in the region and the economic decline of its trading partner Venezuela. (Reuters)
• The Central Bank of Brazil announces that it will start producing 200 reais bills starting in August. (G1)
• Zimbabwe's government signs a $3.5 billion agreement with the Commercial Farmers' Union to compensate white farmers who were forcibly evicted from their land during a controversial land redistribution program in the 2000s under former President Robert Mugabe. (CNN)

• A train derails following a bridge collapse on Tempe Town Lake in Tempe, Arizona, sparking a fire. (NBC News)

• COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Asia
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Japan
      • Iwate reports its first cases of COVID-19 infections, with two people testing positive. (Mainichi Shimbun)
      • Japan's daily new COVID-19 cases tops 1,000 for the first time. (NHK World)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam; COVID-19 pandemic in Equatorial Guinea
      • Vietnam repatriates 219 of its citizen from Equatorial Guinea with at least 120 of them reported to be COVID-19 infectees. (VnExpress)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
      • China reports 101 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. This is the highest number of new cases since mid-April, and 89 of them are from Xinjiang. (Reuters)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in South America
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil
      • The number of deaths in Brazil reaches past 90,000. (New Straits Times)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Peru
      • The number of cases in Peru reaches past 400,000. (The Asian Age)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland
      • Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announces that the state will tighten their mask mandate to prevent a spike in cases. (The Hill)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Texas
      • The number of cases in Texas surges past 400,000 as 313 COVID-related deaths are recorded in a day. (Financial Times)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe
    • Incumbent Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Perrance Shiri dies from COVID-19 at the age of 65. (Reuters)

• Fiji–United States relations
  • Fiji's opposition parties urge the government to reconsider its decision of closing Fiji's embassy in the United States, the European Union, and other countries, and blame Chinese influence in the Pacific. (RNZ)
• Belarus–Russia relations
  • Belarusian security forces arrest 32 members of the private military company Wagner Group at a sanitarium near Minsk in an overnight raid. All those detained are Russian nationals, according to authorities. President Alexander Lukashenko convenes an emergency meeting with his security council, and instructs the Chairman of the State Security Committee to ask Russia for an official explanation. (The Guardian)

• George Floyd protests
  • George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
    • A masked, umbrella-wielding man accused of helping incite riots and looting in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd is identified. (ABC News)
  • George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon
    • Oregon Governor Kate Brown announces that federal agents deployed to Portland, including all Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, will start withdrawing tomorrow, per her conversation with Vice President Mike Pence. (Business Insider)
  • George Floyd protests in Wisconsin
    • Two women, Kerida O’Reilly (33) and Samantha Hamer (26), are charged for attacking Wisconsin State Senator Tim Carpenter outside the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison. (The Hill)
• Censorship in Turkey
  • The Grand National Assembly of Turkey passes a new social media regulation bill that requires foreign sites to appoint Turkish-based representatives to help monitor content, and will punish companies that don't comply with fines and throttling bandwidth. (Reuters)
• Blasphemy in Pakistan
  • A man accused of blasphemy under a new controversial law is shot dead by a gunman in the courtroom while he was standing trial for allegedly insulting Islam. The victim was part of the Ahmadiyya faith, a minority Islamic sect that Pakistan declared non-Muslim in 1974 for regarding its founder as a prophet. The suspect was a former member. (DW)
• A man accused of attacking pro-democracy Hong Kong activist and convener of the Civil Human Rights Front Jimmy Sham says he was offered a HK$2 million bounty to "cripple" him in last year's attack. (South China Morning Post)
• Moroccan journalist and human rights activist Omar Radi is arrested and charged with rape and aiding foreign spies. The charges come after Amnesty International reported that the Moroccan government was using Israeli spyware to spy on dissidents like him. (Reuters)