Politics

Jul 30th 2026 America and Iran returned to fighting after an informal five-day truce. After Iran attacked American bases in Jordan, Donald Trump retaliated, bombing targets in southern Iran. Iran’s insistence on controlling shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has caused negotiations to stall, though Mr Trump said he would “let them keep talking”. Meanwhile the Houthis, an Iran-backed Yemeni militia, struck tankers linked to Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose to around $90 a barrel, having fallen to $84 on July 28th. Mourners gathered in Washington, DC, for the funeral of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who died on July 11th. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, attended the ceremony after joining separate meetings with Donald Trump. Mr Graham

was a strong supporter of both countries. Meanwhile senators advanced a bill, proposed by Graham, that would toughen sanctions on Russia and Iran. Democrats in Maine chose Troy Jackson as their new candidate for a Senate race in November. The previous nominee, Graham Platner, dropped out following allegations of sexual assault (which he denies). Mr Jackson is a fifth-generation logger and former president of the Maine Senate. He will take on Susan Collins, a five-term Republican. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in the midterms for a Senate majority. Andy Burnham, Britain’s prime minister, said he was willing to “spend political capital” to reform social care, calling the system “as unfair as American health care”. Mr Burnham wants to raise pay for workers in the social-care sector, which has struggled with recruitment in recent years. He did not rule out raising taxes to pay for his reforms. The prime minister also opened Number 10 North, a branch of 10 Downing Street, in Manchester. Protests in Delhi and elsewhere in India led by the Cockroach Janta Party, an upstart youth movement, wound down, after it achieved its core aim, the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the education minister, because of the leaking of important exam papers. For the government of Narendra Modi, the prime minister, which makes a point of not succumbing to pressure, the outcome was humiliating. The Kumamoto area of Japan’s southern island of Kyushu was rocked by an earthquake of magnitude 6.8, killing at least 18 people. Some died in a shopping mall in the town of Kashima, where a gas explosion occurred 50 minutes after the quake. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kazakhstan’s leader, urged Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to “freeze” the war in Ukraine. Speaking at a meeting in Siberia, Mr Tokayev urged Mr Putin to negotiate because “the fraternal peoples of Russia and Ukraine are dying”. Kazakhstan is an important ally and trading partner for Russia. Mr Tokayev’s remarks are his most direct criticism of the war. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Sudan’s army, launched an offensive against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) around el-Obeid, the

capital of North Kordofan state. On July 26th the SAF said it had recaptured cities and towns along the road between the city and Khartoum, the national capital. That should enable the army to resupply its forces in el-Obeid. Confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo reached 3,360, according to the latest data from the ministry of health. Just under half that number died of the disease. The number of confirmed cases is nearly as high as the total recorded in Congo and Uganda during the last Ebola outbreak between 2018 and 2020. Wildfires raged in France and Spain as temperatures in Europe soared. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, said the blazes were the worst “since the second world war”. More than 350,000 people have been evacuated in the two countries. Dry weather, high temperatures and strong winds have caused the fires to spread quickly. Mr Macron warned that “the coming weeks will be tough.” Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) charged Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, with “facilitating terrorist activity”. The intelligence agency accused him of allowing Ukrainians to “co-ordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass killings and cyber-fraud” on the messaging platform. The

FSB issued an international warrant for Mr Durov, who was born in Russia and is a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s hard-right Law and Justice (PiS) party, expelled Matuesz Morawiecki, a former prime minister. He also expelled from PiS more than 30 MPs who were Mr Morawiecki’s allies. Mr Morawiecki had set up a group to push for PiS to adopt policies that would help the party gain support among centre-right voters. Mr Kaczynski had ordered him to dissolve it or be expelled. Romania shot down three Russian drones over its territory. Nicusor Dan, Romania’s president, said the incursions were “intolerable”. In recent months Russian drones have repeatedly crossed into Romania, which is part of NATO. In May a stray drone hit an apartment building in Galati, a city near the border with Ukraine, injuring two civilians. Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as Peru’s president. She is the ninth person to lead the country in a decade. Ms Fujimori narrowly beat her left-wing rival in a run-off. She is a polarising figure, best known as the eldest daughter of the late Alberto Fujimori, an autocrat. She vowed to bring “order and national reconciliation” to Peru’s unstable politics. Flávio Bolsonaro launched his campaign ahead of Brazil’s presidential election this October. Mr Bolsonaro is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, a hard-right former president, who is barred from seeking office for plotting a military coup in 2022. The senior Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest and banned from campaigning, delivered his endorsement via an AI-generated video. Right-wing candidates have won the past seven presidential elections in Latin America. María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s leading opposition politician, announced she would not join American-backed talks with the Venezuelan government. She urged participants to clarify their “objectives, methodology and timeline”. America hopes the talks can help Venezuela prepare to hold free elections. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/the-world-this-week/2026/07/30/politics

Jul 30th 2026 America’s Federal Reserve held its main interest rate in the range of 3.5- 3.75%. Three of 12 members of the central bank’s rate-setting committee voted to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Kevin Warsh, the Fed’s chair, hinted that the bank could raise rates if the rate of inflation— which has been running above the bank’s 2% target—continues to remain high. Bond markets seemed unconvinced by his commentary. The yield on 30-year Treasury bonds rose above 5.2%, its highest since 2007. Meta, an American tech giant, made $16bn in profit in the second quarter, down by 14% from the same period last year. Its cashflow fell by 91%, as it increased its spending on artificial-intelligence infrastructure such as data centres. Meta’s share price fell by about 7.5% in after-hours trading.

Financial regulators in South Korea said they would limit access to some leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) after the KOSPI, the country’s main stock index, fell sharply. Officials blame the funds for exaggerating moves in the share prices of South Korean companies. After rising sharply in the first half of the year, the index has fallen by nearly 40% from its peak in late June (though it is still 30% higher than at the start of the year). SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, made profits of 93.9trn won ($64.6bn) in the second quarter, up 1,240% year on year. Yet this was still below analysts’ expectations. Investors are concerned about the firm’s spending. Its share price fell by 6% on July 30th. Over 50 companies, including Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI, signed a letter in support of open-weight AI models (which users can customise) as American firms seek to compete with cheaper Chinese competitors. Anthropic, a rival of OpenAI, published its own letter in response, saying it does not support a ban on open-weight models, but that they present safety risks by possibly allowing bad actors to modify leading-edge models. Shares of ASML, the company that manufactures the tools used to make the most advanced semiconductors, has fallen by 13% since July 24th. The drop came after the Information, a news outlet, reported that China has started

making its own deep ultraviolet lithography machines. Such machines are not the cutting edge of chipmaking tech, but they would represent a breakthrough for China. CXMT, a chipmaker, became China’s most valuable onshore firm when its shares rose by 466% following its IPO in Shanghai. The company is China’s largest producer of memory chips, whose price has soared worldwide as the data-centre buildout raises demand. CXMT, which makes around 8% of DRAM chips (the kind used in smartphones and laptops), is likely to grow quickly if American firms pivot to buying Chinese chips for their consumer goods. Paramount Skydance said it would pause its $111bn takeover of Warner Bros as courts consider a challenge to the deal from 12 American states. The trial will add hefty legal fees on top of the costs of the debt-heavy transaction. Neither firm is likely to take big risks while the acquisition is on hold, leaving Hollywood short of buyers for ambitious projects. Kering, a luxury firm, reported organic sales growth for the first time in three years. The group, which operates brands such as Gucci and Saint Laurent, has suffered many of the same problems as other luxury firms as consumers tired of price hikes. Its boss, Luca de Meo, hopes new designers at many brands and closing underperforming stores will help the group grow again. Hermès and LVMH, two other luxury firms, also had positive sales in important divisions. Apple launched a leasing scheme for many of its devices with Klarna, a payments firm. The iPhone-maker has raised prices for its products because of rising memory-chip costs. The initiative aims to attract thrifty consumers while limiting financial risk through the partnership. Prices to lease an iPhone start at $17.99 a month. America banned imports of humanoid robots, citing “unacceptable risks” to national security. The Federal Communications Commission said the devices, which are mostly made in China, could “surveil Americans”. The regulator also blocked foreign-made power inverters, which are used in data centres and solar panels.

FIFA, football’s governing body, proposed raising $4.2bn by selling stakes in a venture to help run its tournaments, including the World Cup. Josh Kushner, the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been tapped as an investor. FIFA’s member associations must approve the plan. UEFA, which governs the European game, said FIFA was selling the “soul...of football”. The European Union vowed to investigate it. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/the-world-this-week/2026/07/30/business